It was another delivery, another nine trussed kids in the back of the truck, another long haul on endless highways.

But it was a job and it paid the mortgage. There were worst things in life.

Tom Kinder - yeah, he smiled himself at that one - had been in the child delivery business for five years - three as his own boss. It was tough making a living against the big guys, but he kept a level head and a clean truck, picking up the business where it was waiting, keeping regular customers happy.

Of course, there weren't too many regular customers in this line in as much as once you delivered a fully bound and gagged kid as a slave, they usually didn't need another one in a hurry. But some of the agencies and distributors used him often enough and there were always private deliveries.

And business was never that bad. Strange, he would think to himself as he sat for mile after mile behind the wheel of the truck, how popular child bondage was. How so many people wanted their own child slave. How there was always a market for a cute girl - and there were far more girls, much less boys - as a domestic bondage slave.

Strictly speaking it wasn't child bondage. It wasn't, technically, slavery even though everyone thought of that way. Officially, it was Protective Adoption. A legal nicety, Tom always thought, to keep the dissenters happy. Yet he wasn't even sure there were many dissenters. No one led marches or protests against it all, you hardly ever saw anyone on TV proposing some sort of mass release.

No, the country was happy with what it saw as beneficial protection of kids - the fact they happened to be tied up and made to work in the home or just be prisoners rarely troubled the world. It didn't trouble Tom much either.

Tom was 46 and a father himself. Three kids from his first marriage, one from being hitched to Chantelle. He didn't see much of the older three - Louise, Tom junior and Zandra - as their mom had moved them out of state, but life was good with Chantelle and their eight year old daughter, Olivia.

They knew what he did of course - well, Chantelle knew as she was the brains of the business but Olivia probably didn't understand. She thought of her pop as a truck driver plain and simple. But he saw no reason in educating his daughter to what exactly he hauled across the nation to pay for the things she liked and needed. He was adamant of course that he wouldn't trade his daughter into Protective Adoption and Chantelle would never agree to it. Families did - lots of them - but not his.

He wondered, briefly, if he would one day see one of his older kids loaded in the back, sat tied to the travel chairs, maybe staring at him helplessly from behind a gag. He wondered how he would feel if Karen - his first wife - and the guy she shacked up with sold one of his kids. Or two or all three. Louise was probably too old now and Tom junior not cute enough if he was honest but Zandra was different. Eleven years old and good looking. She might get a good price.

But it was pointless worrying about such a thing. It would have been out of his hands and anyway, some kids were loaded in hooded for whatever reason. One or two guys he knew in the same line of business always said the hooded ones were famous kids - an actor or an upcoming singer - or the kids of well known people and no one had to know. They always said if you got one of those you knew because the price for a safe delivery was so high. Well, Tom had his share of hooded kids but no extra cash.

It didn't matter much as the money was good as it was for what he did. Particularly good right now: he studied the market trends and prices as every owner/operator should. Eight year old girls were going for as much as four thousand dollars and rumors in the media said seven year old were the next big thing. What were they predicting, five, maybe six, thousand each? That was if they were really cute. Natural cute, with no permanent eyeliner and lip gloss, might get even more some predicted.

Word on the street, or in the bars, was demand was rising for girl slaves again.

Tom smiled. A few more price hikes and a few more short haul contracts to cut overheads and he could think about that cabin by the lake, or a new car for Chantelle. The man patted the dash, encouraging his old truck. One thing he wouldn't be doing with more cash was trade in this truck. It did the job.

In the back he had room for twelve kids, and rarely went with less than six unless it was a real special, all expenses paid job. Like last fall, when he went down to Florida with just one little girl. He even allowed her to sit up front with him for some of the way. Tom shouldn't have, as she was publicly bound, but he took her gag out and let her talk. It was company for him and there wasn't much point in keeping her in the back on her own, even though she would have had her own cubicle with her own seat and comfortable restraints.

Some people said you just herded the slaves like cattle and got the money quick. Tom, as befitting a father, felt you had to treat them right. Even the chair he had put in each cubicle had extra cushioning and a headrest. The chain cuffs were padded, the gags generous leather wedges that wouldn't displace jaws as some brutal ball gags did. 'I deliver unmarked,' he told his customers. 'Safe and quiet.'

That was his joke. Not safe and sound, but safe and without a sound. He preferred to keep them gagged all the way, save for the regulation jaw free exercise period and meals of course. Recently he'd been reading up about drip-feed gags and flex-i-rubber balls to allow both exercise, meals and silence. Tom liked the idea but Chantelle, who had a better head for figures, said it wouldn't be economical just yet to fit them.

Maybe next year, if business continued to pick up.

So Tom had driven hundreds miles down towards Florida with that solitary girl, chatting to him for company. Her name was Kimmy and she was a bright little girl who was going to be a slave to a wealthy family who owned property outside Fort Lauderdale. Tom had often wondered why people wanting child slaves didn't shop locally, but that was the trend and he couldn't complain.

You never asked why, you just delivered. And yet... Kimmy told him of her life, how her mom and dad tied her up at home, how she was one of seven kids and the most sale-able. She sat next to Tom, arms tied in a conventional travel arm-binder, legs locked in short chain manacles, gag hanging round her neck in case Tom needed to put it in. But he didn't - she was sensible. Kimmy had been auctioned online and was real cute. Natural cute, and the Florida family - who it seemed already had two child slaves, a boy and a girl - bid big for her. Kimmy wasn't sure how much, but it was a lot.

Tom knew that. His fee was eight thousand for that one drive.

Today though was a straightforward delivery. Ten kids, twenty one thousand. Maybe a little below average and would have been better if he'd picked up two more from one of his regular contacts, but that had fallen through as one of the kids wasn't ready. Paperwork, regulations and picky delays - the bane of this job. They always said those things brought down most child moving truckers. The small ones anyway who couldn't absorb the delays, the price drops.

But if he could collect a few kids for the journey back he'd be really okay.

A road-check ahead was signaling Tom to pull over. He did and waited for the cop to approach. The usual demand for licenses, haulage papers, route plan for stops and exercise schedule for the kids, mixed in with the usual exchanges over traffic, road conditions, whether some bridge was out or road repairs ahead. The cop, a woman in her forties, did a cursory check on the cubicles and his security and was satisfied. As much as any cop did, she praised his comfort standards for the bound kids, balancing that with a warning about a loose plate at the back and a reminder to watch his speed.

Cops, Tom thought as he drove on. Always the same.

He wasn't far from his drop off point - a distribution center close to Harrisburg where local haulers, or even the buyers themselves, would collect and take the kids wherever. He hoped one of his regulars was looking to ship several kids back north but this was a place where there were always some delays.

In this business you soon got to know where the bureaucrats, the paper pushers, fouled up and how much. Tom rated this one as A star.

There was another truck waiting as he drove in. He recognized the plates and the driver, guy called Sam from Oregon who drove for Western Bound, one of the biggest national - and west coast based - movers. The type of set up a solo mover like Tom couldn't hope to compete with. But then, he didn't want to. Moving slaves across country involved days, if not weeks, away from home driving a 24 cell rig or bigger.

He'd come across Sam before on the road. Old guy who didn't say much usually but he was agitated as hell when Tom got out of the cab. 'Damned officials,' the man growled to no one in particular though Tom couldn't help but hear. 'Five kids not ready, four canceled. An' I got to go to Denver on the way back for twelve kids barely out of diapers. That means more paperwork! These people ever tried to run a truck and have a life?'

Tom felt that certain oh-shit feeling you get when you know a place isn't right, that they're not organized. But if he wasn't picking up, he was sure putting down. Usually that meant less problems. As he walked into the reception office he consoled himself that once the kids were unhooked, checked in, checked over and signed off, he could be on his way home. At least if Sam was right this was one place he needn't worry about delays in picking up. There wouldn't be anyone waiting.

The woman behind the desk was young, new and flustered. She wasn't having a good day and no doubt old Sam would be sending her nuts. She was shuffling papers like it would help: Tom had seen enough of this business to know that re-arranging lists didn't.

'Good day, ma'am. Nine kids, shipment for Union Secure Kids. Seven girls, two boys, all accounted for and signed.' He dropped the papers on the woman's desk. The woman, whose name badge said Kathy, glared at Tom.

'This isn't a good day. I haven't got people to unload them right now.' She looked close to tears, like she'd had an argument with someone. Maybe, Tom thought, the unloaders have walked out.

'Uh, Kathy, I can't take them back. I have to deliver by three and it's one now. I'm ahead of schedule and I'd be grateful if you could take them off me, count them and sign.' He indicated where she should sign, though she ought to know.

'Mister, I'm having problems here,' she snapped and then realized she was being too angry with a man who wasn't the cause of her problems, though taking nine kids off on her own and putting them in the holding area wasn't what she wanted to do. She made that plain.

'Look,' said Tom softly. 'I know it can be hectic at times, so I can help. You show me where to put them and I'll help you get the papers done. Then I'm gone and you don't have to worry about me.'

'It's not you, it's them.'

'Excuse me?'

'Western Bound! They phoned and canceled an order an hour ago, then one of their people turns up demanding a collection.' She nodded through the window at Sam, leaning on his truck. 'I don't have them here. What does he think this is - some sort of factory that makes them!'

'Mistakes happens. Your manager call them back?'

'He's off, sick. Unloaders're still on lunch.' She paused, looking ruffled. 'This isn't a good time.'

Tom sympathized. Western Bound can be assholes,' he said. 'You can't do anything about that right now.'

Kathy nodded, accepting the wisdom of it. 'Who you say you're from?'

'I didn't. I'm my own business. Kinder's my name and that's the business. From upstate New York.' He added his slogan: 'Kinder - the kindest way to transport kids in bondage.'

The name and location didn't seem to impress Kathy, and she plainly didn't see the humor in the slogan. 'Hmm, I can't see anything here 'bout Kindly,' said the woman, rifling through papers on her untidy desk.

'That's Kinder,' corrected the man. 'It's here on top,' said Tom as pleasantly as he could, pointing to a sheet.

'Uh-uh.' Kathy scooped up the sheet. 'Okay, that's good. Eight kids delivered.'

'Eight? I have nine. Seven and two.'

'Um, here it's eight. Kinder, delivering six and two.' The woman offered the man the sheet.

Tom took the note and read it for himself. It was in black and white: six girls and two boys by four o'clock. He flipped the sheet over, looking for a correction. There wasn't one. 'You sure there's no follow up note? Nothing else sent through? I collected seven and two, from John Franks in Detroit. Look, here's my note.'

Tom pulled a folded sheet from his top pocket and Kathy took it. 'No, she said. This says eight.' She handed it back, pointing to the load section. 'You must have read the six as a seven. We only need six girls.'

'Shit,' Tom said under his breath. It had been a long time since this had happened. 'I'll call the distributor,' he said, pulling out his cell phone. The woman behind the desk waited, less than patiently, while the man tried to get an answer. Franks must have been out. When he canceled the call, the best he could say was: 'He's not there. I don't know what to say.'

The woman's stress was obvious. 'Well we sure as hell can't take the seventh! There are laws here you know.' An obvious reference to the way each state did business with slave kids - New York was seen by some as the maverick, along with California. But then, even New York said that about the west coast. 'This extra,' Kathy blew air up her face to maybe cool her fevered brow, thought Tom. 'She'll have to go back to wherever.'

Tom started to say, 'It's not convenient,' but he stopped himself. It wasn't this woman's problem. He had no right to demand they took the seventh girl. He sighed, reflecting things rarely went well at this place. 'How the hell did they give me seven girls?' he puzzled aloud.

'Search me. So, can you unload the right six?' asked the woman.

'Sure. Just depends which six are on your list, I guess.' Tom folded his papers back up and went out to the truck, ignoring Sam's grumbles on the way across the lot.

---

The unloaders finally arrived and took out the eight on the list, leaving him with a girl by the name of Colette. She stood by the side of his truck, arms in the regulation black vinyl and leather strengthened arm-binder, chains on her ankles and a red leather wedge gag. She was around twelve, with evidence of a decent developing bust and long legs. Above all, she had a cute face under a mop of auburn hair. Not five thousand cute, but good enough.

She watched the eight who'd traveled with her being guided in a snake, necks connected by a chain, off towards the holding area. She looked curious why she wasn't going with them.

'Screw up,' said Tom, watching them go, wincing as one of the unloaders quite unnecessarily used his flogger on the ass of the child at the back of the snake, as if that would make them all go faster. He didn't have a problem with disciplining wayward brats - he carried a flogger himself - but it wasn't the little girl's fault they were dawdling. But wasn't that always the way, the one at the back gets the blame?

Colette looked at the man, a question still on her face. 'It's a damn screw up, you have to go back.' He nearly said back home, but of course he had no idea where that was. She'd probably been moved in from some other place, probably moved more than once. A survey once said on average most child slaves or prisoners were moved four-point-eight times before they were 'settled'. That usually meant two years as one family's prisoner, then sold on. Could be this one's been on the road for years and now she was going back to Detroit and then to some place else.

He might even get to take her again, but for now he was anxious to get her to Detroit and then go home himself. 'In the truck, kid. Let's get this show moving.' He started to guide Colette towards the rear doors of the truck but stopped. The girl looked up at him with her blue eyes while he struggled with something on his mind.

'You'll have to go in the cab with me.' He grimaced. 'I haven't got papers for you in the back. If the police stop me it'll look bad if I don't have a schedule.' He thought briefly about going into the office and asking Kathy - helpful, understanding Kathy - to write him a return program on their stationery. Given how disorganized she was and her anxious state he doubted she'd find a blank page anyway. No, the easiest thing was to put Colette up with himself at the front and tell any cops who wanted to know she was his, not business.

That gave him a strange feeling. For some reason he'd never really thought of owning a slave girl - delivering was what he did, bound kids for other people. What, he wondered, would it be like having a girl like this as your own prisoner? Tom dismissed the thought as soon as he had it. This one belonged to Franks in Detroit and she was going back there.

It made the man simile to think there was truck someplace with one short. Maybe another driver like Sam from Western Bound, arguing in somewhere like Chicago or Louisville they ought to have six but there was only five. Calling Franks to ask what the hell he was doing.

Tom helped the girl into the cab, noticing the way she looked around that she'd probably not been in front before. Her place was in the truck back and this was novel, sitting up there, seeing the world rather than the inside of a cubicle. Tom took the girl's red leather gag out and replaced it with a spare he always carried - an ordinary kid sized black rubber ball gag.

Sam of Western Bound stared at him as Tom steered the truck out of the lot, out on to the road.

---

At the first opportunity, he tried to call Franks again but still no reply. Tom called Chantelle and told her what had happened. His wife groaned.

'Told you not to do business with that man,' said Chantelle. 'Never was any good.'

'It's business,' said Tom. 'I can't pick and choose. He pays, right?'

'He pays late,' corrected Chantelle.

But she was sympathetic about the kid he was left with, agreeing the child had to go back to Detroit. She promised she'd make enquiries so he could concentrate on driving, let him know what Franks said.

Tom put the cell phone down and resumed the journey. He hadn't spoken to Colette and saw no reason to. She looked happy enough bound and gagged, watching the world slip by. But he looked over at her a few times just to make sure she was comfortable. He smiled to himself over his slogan: 'Kinder - the kindest way to transport kids in bondage.'

He could have had the child trussed up on the floor of the cab, out of sight, or have her stretched out in the truck on the punishment board he'd had installed. Or even do what some haulers did and have the girl suspended by the ankles upside down in the back, swinging gently as they jolted along. He could do what several drivers told him they'd seen or heard about: the driver who liked to tie a girl on the front of his cab like a ship's figurehead, hair streaming and a no doubt terrified look on the kids face as they hurtled along, with another sat bound and gagged up on top of the cab, legs splayed painfully wide so the wind would whip against her bare pussy.

Or hanging on the side in a spreadeagle position - like the one some drivers said they'd seen for a mover called "Lexer" and the child was the X in the word. Privately, Tom thought that would be a mannequin of some sort. The cops would never allow it. But then, the other drivers said they'd seen it on the west coast and sometimes you think anything goes there.

He could have done anything with this salve alongside him he guessed - and some drivers would have done - but here she was as his companion. Silent, but a companion. He even appreciated that she didn't try to talk through her gag, which he would have found way too irritating.

Slowly he began pointing things out to her, indicating a wild bird, or an odd building or vehicles on the road. Several times he pointed out another child bondage carrier. 'You could be in that one,' he said to Colette as a Union Central Child Transport truck went by. 'Hear they're hard on the kids they move. Standing room only, with neck chains to hold them up.'

He couldn't be sure, but the girl nodded, as if she knew firsthand. He thought: she's probably got a story to tell. Perhaps later, if he's really bored and the journey drags, he might ungag her and ask her a few questions. The thought cheered him a little and he wondered what kind of accent she'd have, or even if she was American. After all, Colette sounded foreign, French perhaps. Now that would be intriguing.

Rumor - and there was plenty of that on the road - had it that some European kids were brought over. Owners liked blonde Swedish girls it was said, the big busted teutonic teenage girls too. Even the fiery red haired Irish colleens.

Chantelle, who was American even if her name sounded French, called back. 'I got some real bad news,' said Tom's wife. 'You ready for this?'

'Go on,' said Tom.

'Franks is gone, there's no business.'

'What do you mean, gone? Like, left town?'

'Gone as in dead. Seems he had a few enemies, people he upset. One of them, cops don't know who yet, took it out on him at close range. Then this punk torched his place.'

'Shit,' he said.

'Shit's right.'

'Any slaves dead?' Tom was shocked to hear about Franks but didn't want any bad news about bound kids.

'No, seems you got the last load. Which is good.'

'Why?'

'You got an alibi. You were miles away.'

'I wouldn't shoot Franks,' protested Tom. 'He might be a creep but I don't go murdering my business.'

'I know but the cops'd have to investigate everyone he did business with.' A pause. 'The real bad news is those kids you delivered might not earn us much money.'

'Maybe, but there are procedures, appeals. The Center for Transported Children has the scheme which -'

'Don't count on it,' sighed Chantelle. 'I asked about that. Seems you have to have the right insurance, which we don't, and Franks didn't pay into the scheme. All we can do is contact Franks' suppliers, but as his records went up in smoke that's gonna take time. Don't worry about it. We'll talk soon, honey. Drive carefully.'

Tom drove carefully and tried not to worry. It wasn't entirely unusual that distributors went out of business but most of them had some insurance, or were part of the compensation scheme. Franks, shark that he was, clearly wasn't. But twenty thousand dollars would take some recovering.

At least he didn't have to head home via Detroit now. And his family might have a slave girl all of their own.

---

The diner wasn't too busy, which Tom preferred. There weren't any other child haulers in the place either, which pleased him more. He hated talking business over a meal or exchanging stories about truck maintenance, highways and cops, tied up kids and what some of these men did to them.

Or women too. Some haulers were female and more than a few of them he'd heard had a cruel streak.

But he accepted some people wanted to be slave haulers because it was both a living and a way of torturing helpless kids. Sure, you had to discipline the kids you moved - hadn't he whipped a few troublemakers in his time? - but to set out to have what was little more than a mobile torture dungeon wasn't his style.

He had barely started eating when a woman, with a shifty looking man in the background, approached him. 'Excuse me,' she said, glancing nervously around as she spoke. 'You in the kid haulage line?'

'Maybe.' He looked at the woman. Thin faced, straggly hair. Tired looking, like she'd been on the move a lot. Not restless, more haunted.

'We - that's my husband and me - saw you come in. The flogger at your side,' she nodded to his hip and the obvious child-punishment flogger all movers carried, 'Uh, we thought you were in the business.'

Tom looked from the woman to the man. He figured they weren't married but that wasn't his concern. 'So?' He didn't want to be rude but he did want to eat his meal in peace, get some food out to Colette and back on the road. He was also wary of the occasional nut who'd rant and wave the bible, saying child slavery was the work of the devil. It wasn't, but there was no reasoning with some folk.

'It's just that we have a, uh, proposition for you.' The woman seemed even more anxious than before. She was looking out the diner windows at the vehicles outside, expecting to see trouble arrive.

'I don't do business on the road,' said Tom. 'I don't sell my load on the route. I'm not that kind of hauler.'

'We aren't buying, though I'm sure whatever you're carrying is sweet.' The straggle haired woman fixed her eyes on Tom's. Determined look, he noted, or desperate. 'We want to sell. A girl, no more'n eight or nine. Dark haired. Pretty.'

'You should go to a sales office. Probably one round here some place. Look in the phone book.'

'No, we need to sell her now. Quick.' She was looking at the parking lot again as she said it.

'You expecting trouble?' Tom asked casually as he continued eating.

The woman didn't answer. Were they being chased? What if the police were going to arrive? He made the point: 'Looking for the cops?'

'Not them. A couple of guys who think we have what they want. They stole this kid, held up a hauler.'

'And you have her?' Part of Tom wanted to know more, part of him didn't want to know.

'We, um, took her for ours. But they'll want her back. We don't have much time.'

'And you want me to take her off your hands.' He wasn't quite sure he believed the story but the woman - and the man hovering some way off - were clearly worried. The hauler being held up angle might have been to get Tom's interest, generate some sort of reaction anger about crime against his fellow-drivers.

The woman sensed Tom wasn't convinced. She looked at the man pleadingly. 'Two hundred and fifty, that's all. You could sell her, make some money. She ought to go for a good thousand. More, if they like Latino kids.'

'Mexican's illegal,' he said, understanding what she was saying. There was no agreement between the US and Mexico on child slaves. Sure, it happened but he didn't do business with those. It made him think about Franks and his murder - he guessed the man had been involved in bringing young Mexican girls north, in his time.

'We need to get her safe. We uh, can't guarantee it,' said the woman. The last throw of the dice.

Tom thought. As much as he didn't want to deal in illegals, he did need to make money after what had happened today. He would get something for Colette, and maybe for just two hundred fifty he could make some more, so the journey wasn't entirely a waste of time and money. Plus, he had room.

He didn't even have to sell her as Latino. Texan, southern Californian perhaps. There were ways round this. 'Two hundred,' he said. 'Take it or leave it.'

The woman took it.

---

The Latino girl didn't have a name, or rather she did but the rough gag the eight (or nine) year old was gagged with stopped her saying. There were of course no papers but Tom hadn't expected any. The woman in the diner said they called her Chiquita, but as far as Tom was concerned they were all Chiquita - little girl. He wondered if Cochita might be better - the forgotten one.

But Chiquita would do for now.

He thought about it and decided it would be better if he had the new girl and Colette up front in the cab. It was a risk but they wouldn't appear above the edge of the window, couldn't be seen by a car overtaking, especially if he tied them down to the seat so they weren't sat up straight. It would also help at any checkpoint: if they weren't in the back they weren't an official load. These two, he could argue, were his personal slaves.

Unlikely, but better than nothing.

But it was weird, having two tied and silenced girls up in the cab with him. Colette had stared at the Mexican girl as Tom lifted her in, perhaps more amazed at the way she was roughly bound with hemp ropes across her little chest and arms, the way her legs were tied with wire. Colette was probably intrigued at the gag - nothing smooth or made to fit. Just a block of wood forced into the girl's mouth and held with wire.

Colette couldn't know that Tom wished he had a spare gag to silence the child with, but that crude gag would have to do for now. Using an official red leather one would have aroused curiosity with them up front.

The child was almost naked with just a small pair of thin, once white, underpants to hide her sex. Tom had taken pity on the child and draped a blanket over her small shoulders once she was in the cab, next to Colette. Chiquita looked grateful enough, but he couldn't help noticing marks from a fairly recent whipping on her little arms and across her back. She'd had a rough ride, he figured.

As they drove away from the diner, Tom wondered how they'd got this child over the border. Probably tied up in some confined space, even slung under a truck, between metal supports. Or buried in some grain barrel with a small air supply. There were, he'd heard, a hundred different ways of smuggling a bound child in. Though the border guards stopped most of them some got through. Or a lot, depending who you spoke to.

He wondered what the appeal of a Latino girl was, too. Sure, some people bought illegals for torture, punishing them in ingenious and cruel ways. There had been a case recently: a celebrity couple had three normal slaves - all blonde, blue eyed girls, who they kept around the home openly. In their basement they had four young Mexican - or Cuban - girls chained up for torture sessions. They hadn't got permits or health care plans or anything like that for them, unlike their normal child slaves.

The celebrities been fined and threatened with jail. But apart from taking the Latino children off them, they were free. The Latino little girls had been returned to their home countries, free themselves briefly no doubt until someone had rounded them up again. Chiquita might be one of them, he mused, brought back to the States - her life a series of journeys in trucks and dark places, used to being tied up and gagged, expecting to be whipped at least. And if she ever got to some rich house, she'd see nothing but a purpose built dungeon with racks and other torture devices.

They always said if you wanted to make money from kids in bondage, you made restraints and items of torture. The demand for whips and chains and punishment devices was endless.

Tom wondered if the girl with her large dark eyes expected him to flog her, just because that's what people did. He caught her eye and smiled at her. The girl looked confused. Maybe he should, at the next stop, give her a light whipping to put her mind at rest.

Maybe that would be the kindest thing to do.

---

Chiquita didn't struggle or object when he bound her facing a tree by the side of the road. Colette looked on, tied herself to an adjacent tree, as the Mexican child was readied for her whipping. She watched as the younger girl was tied securely, face to the tree and her neck secured so her rough gag was pressed to the trunk.

Tom tied the eight year old's legs (he assumed that was her age) to the rough bark and eased her dirty pants down a little. There were the expected and distinct whip marks - perhaps from a riding crop - across her bruised butt and she flinched when he ran his fingers over the weals. 'Still hurt, huh?' he said kindly. 'I'll try not to whip across them too much.'

Tom didn't know whether the girl understood English (and his Spanish was poor) but he felt better for saying it. Colette would have heard and appreciated his concern. He ran his hands over the younger girl's little thighs feeling how smooth the skin was there. She hadn't been whipped as far as he could tell on the inside of her legs, so if he unwired her legs and struck her it would hurt.

He decided to keep the flogging on the outside of her legs. Hurting little girls wasn't his ideal but it had to be done, he knew. Slaves stayed slaves because they understood what was done to them. It wasn't cruelty as such. More of a necessity. A reminder of their place that slaves expected and owners simply accepted.

The flogger blurred across Chiquita's shoulders, across her bound arms, flicking her waist and even, once or twice, over her already hurting ass. Tom was good at this for all his distaste for hurting children: he knew how to pace it, how to make it even so they didn't fret about whether it was over or not. He hated torturing kids the way some folk did by varying the blows without warning, making them wait, making them more fearful.

Tom aimed blows at the outside of the girl's legs. The pants, bunched to just below her little cunt, would protect that from a stray thong (it happened, he knew) but her legs took the blows, making her squeal and howl into her gag. Tears ran down her little face and she shuddered at every fresh blow. The ones that caught her butt made her squeal loudest.

Tom at least consoled himself that he wasn't too brutal, didn't re-whip the really sore areas to make them worse. But a small body like this one didn't have much target area so it was inevitable she would get some repeat blows. And he didn't like to give less than twenty.

He stopped, feeling warm even though they were in the shade of the trees. Vehicles were going by on the highway but no one stopped. Hell, you'd see worse than this inside thirty miles.

Now it was time to be even handed, to be fair to both. He went over to Colette, smiled sweetly at her and lifted her t-shirt clear of her prominent, pre-teen breasts. She had the faintest mark from some whipping across them and he handled the small but well shaped twin globes gently, squeezing and caressing rather than gripping them. Colette gave a little sigh, as if she was enjoying this attention, her nipples hardening. She knew what the man was going to do to her but liked his touch. Kind, almost.

Colette hardly screamed into her gag as Tom whipped the front of her chest, flogger slashing across her small tits and her belly, right up to her slender throat and all the way down to the thin pants she wore. One or two slashed went over her mound and she twisted in her ropes, probably because her rising sexual arousal made her more tender there and the pants offered no protection. He paused, recovering his strength. Colette probably knew why: she had to have more lashes than the newcomer and it was wise to wait a few minutes.

'Sorry,' Tom said to the twelve year old when she had stopped writhing, and resumed his whipping. Steady, well aimed, leaving bright new marks on her budding tits and hard nipples.

A highway patrol car had pulled up behind the truck, two cops approaching - a male and female officer making their way over. The man stood back and regarded the scene, the female cop walked over to the Mexican girl, examining her flogging. Tom stood back, unsure about these two. Corrupt cops weren't common but they existed.

The female cop got hold of Chiquita's hair and pulled her head back a little, hurting the child's neck, looking at her wooden gag. 'Looks like an illegal,' said the woman curtly. 'These two yours?'

'Sure thing,' said Tom. 'On my way back home. New York state.'

'We saw the plates,' said the male cop. 'Any more in there?' He nodded towards the parked truck.

'No. Return loads are kinda thin,' Tom replied, unsure how friendly he should be towards these two.

'You deal in illegals?' The female twisted her hand in Chiquita's black hair, making the child yelp.

'Course I don't. This is how I picked her up, Harrisburg way.' Tom hated lying but she was a two hundred dollar investment and he needed paid for this trip somehow.

'Where're you going?' the male cop was still hanging back.

'Delivery to a guy called Franks, in Detroit. Then home.' Tom figured they wouldn't have heard any news of a murder of a distributor in Detroit, or if they had they'd have dismissed it as just another senseless crime in another city. Not their problem.

'This Franks,' the female cop had let go of the little girl's hair but was pinching the child's ass, making her sob with the fresh assault on her wounds. 'He pay well?'

'Okay,' said Tom warily. 'When he gets good money. Market's up and down.'

'But these two are cute,' said the female officer, now moving over to Colette, who looked scared. 'Real expensive cute this one, I'd say.' The woman stroked Colette's hair and then ran her fingers over the child's freshly flogged tits, pinching the nipples still hard from their abuse. Colette whimpered.

'We kinda like some assistance, letting doubtfuls like the Mex and this one go through,' said the woman, grinning at Tom. She hadn't let go of Colette's pained breasts with one hand. The other hand slipped between the twelve year old's legs, inside the child's pants, and Tom could see she wasn't trying to pleasure the girl. Colette wasn't enjoying it much. 'Y'know, how about a consideration for two overworked officers,' added the woman cop. 'A little something to send you on your way.'

Oh fuck, Tom thought. Payment time. He was about to reach for his pocket and what cash he had when he saw the male cop unzipping his pants. A thick cock flipped out. Tom took a deep breath. Was this going to be rape of the girls?

'Y'know the officer here has this thing for a man's ass,' said the female moving towards Tom. 'And I really appreciate a good rimming.'

Tom stared at the man and the woman. They were going to do this to him, here and now? He opened his mouth to say no way, he'd report them. But to who? What if they wanted to see his papers, the documents about moving these two? It was better they didn't ask, and better it was this way. Better him now he concluded than Chiquita being ass-speared and maybe Colette fucked and tortured before he lost them. He'd heard stories of things like that, even cops running their own quiet child bondage deals with slaves "acquired" on the road from unprotected movers. They'd all heard tales in this business.

No, this was the best way. The girls would simply have to watch, standing bound and gagged, and see the man who delivered them being humiliated and abused. This was what these two got off on. He looked at the two officers and saw them smirking, the man stroking his now hard cock.

The sneering, smirking female cop had a pair of cuffs out and Tom didn't resist as his hands were cuffed behind him. He felt his pants dragged down and the woman bent him over, forcing him to his knees. The male's cock was against his asshole, the female had her pants down, her hairy twat brushed against his face and then she turned so her fat ass cheeks were in his face, her butt crack spread by her hands before she moved one to between her legs and toyed with her own clit.

Tom felt a stab of intense pain as the stiff cock drilled into his dry ass but he got his tongue working on the woman's puckered hole, ignoring the acrid taste and the way she wriggled herself back on to his tongue. Fortunately, the pain of being ass fucked slowly subsided and he started to get used to the foul taste of the woman's shithole when they both came with a shout. Less than three minutes, Tom figured as he gave thanks.

Within another ten minutes the two had finished with him, both girls given another flogging by the female cop, he'd been uncuffed and all of them allowed to go.

'Stay in the speed limit, asshole,' the male cop had laughed as they drove off. He stood, feeling the cop's semen run from his brutalized anus, and went to untie his two slaves. At least they weren't sobbing much from the female cop's beating.

Tom grimaced at what had happened. He could have paid a higher price and it could have been worse, he told the girls as he loaded them back into the cab, retied for the journey. Though Chiquita might not understand Colette did. She nodded at him, looking sorry for what he'd gone through. He was glad he hadn't sacrificed her, or even Chiquita for that matter.

---

There was always something good about the last leg of the journey home. Familiar roads and scenery, towns Tom knew. As he usually did, he stopped at a small bar called The Flying Duck. Jim, the barkeep he'd know for years, welcomed Tom with his usual drink.

Above all, The Flying Duck was one of those places child movers used. The bar was a good place for trading news, hearing what was happening locally. Jim had been in the business once himself, running a small truck out of Buffalo for a time but unwilling to take on the big haulers when a price war started.

Part of Tom though wanted to press on home rather than stop. He didn't want to be seen here, but equally he didn't want to be seen not doing what he always did. That would arouse suspicion. From who and over what he wasn't sure.

'Saw you pull in,' said Jim, who managed to both watch the comings and goings of folk and run the bar. 'You got two girls in the back, I noticed.'

'Business,' said Tom, easing his sore ass on to the bar stool.

'At a price?' Jim gave a small nod as if understood what happened out there. 'Looks like you've had a rough ride, way you're moving.'

'That bad, huh?'

Jim snorted. 'You work in the child bondage business like I did. Things go wrong.'

'You have no idea, my friend, what a rough ride I've had.' Tom knocked back the drink, feeling a glow in him.

'Heard something on the vine,' the barkeep said, leaning across the bar. 'Might interest you.'

'What?' Tom trusted Jim but barkeeps talked - it came with the territory. They were supposed to listen, but his experience was they spilled what they'd heard. And some things ought not not be talked about much.

'Fellow over by Winch Hills said there's been a distributor taken out in Detroit. Man by the name of Franks. You work for him?'

'You know I do.' Tom kept his face straight. 'So what do you mean, taken out?'

'Murdered. Seems he was in some Mexican girl smuggling ring. People didn't like it. The guy I know said there was shipment of Latinos, got broken up in Ohio some place. Scattered all round a couple of states.'

Tom shrugged as if he'd heard all this before, that it wasn't anything to do with him. It could, of course, be nothing to do with Chiquita.

'I was thinking,' said Jim. 'I couldn't help notice one of those girls you had, loaded into the back. She looked Mex, like she might be one of them.'

'If she is, it's both none of your business and between distributors. I just do what I'm told, haul tied up children and wear out tires on the way.'

'But you don't bring them round here much.'

Tom felt uncomfortable. Jim was talkative but wanted to know too much. Still, he had to play it straight. 'Jim, these two kids are a special delivery. I wouldn't take them anywhere near home, you know that, if I had a choice. Seems the buyer is in Auburn. Wants them urgent. I'll hole up at home tonight - they can stay in the truck tied to their chairs and I'll ship them over first thing. Shouldn't take too much gas.'

For a second Tom thought he might say, why not take them tonight? But thankfully he didn't. The barkeep seemed satisfied with what Tom had said. He began talking about the price of tires and hunting. Tom listened as he had another drink as he usually did.

Then, out of the blue, Jim said: 'Kinda funny, you letting those girls travel up front with you.'

Tom hoped his face didn't betray the sudden way his stomach fell. Of course he should have loaded the girls down the road, before arriving here. He had been stupid: arriving with a closed truck, no visible sign of any slaves, would not have raised any interest. Now Jim was, despite his casualness, a little too interested.

'Felt sorry for them on their own in the back. Kept them gagged and tied but thought they'd like a change. I shouldn't, but... hey, the name Kinder makes it look like I'm kind.' Tom tried to make it sound like a joke. Jim grinned, but didn't look as if he was buying.

'I have to get them home,' said Tom, getting off the stool, tossing down a bill for his drinks. 'I've got to feed those two before I leave them overnighting in the truck.'

There was a crack of a whip from the back of the bar. Tom looked round, startled.

'Oh pay no mind,' said Jim. 'It's Marty Cates. You know, runs Open Road Tie Ups. He's brought one of his girls in. Little thing by the name of Gayle, apparently. Said he wanted to use the back room for a little whipping.'

The whip cracked again. Through a gap in the door Tom could see a six year old girl, spread out facing the rough brick wall with her hands and feet secured by straps, the child's naked back already a mass of red cuts. She was jerking as if sobbing. Tom didn't care for Cates much - he was deliberately cruel to the girls he moved. Tom guessed there was no real reason to bring the kid here, except for show.

'The buyer likes his purchases well marked, does he?' Tom couldn't keep his feelings hidden.

'She,' said Jim quietly. 'Big shot businesswoman, I hear. Name of Ellen Anders. Collects young girls like that one.' A beat: 'Invests in importing too, they say.'

Tom felt a chill. Importing was child mover talk for illegals. Was this the real source of the Mexican shipment story, how Jim had got to hear about something a couple of hundred miles away that had gone wrong? Something on the road to this part of the world?

He nodded as if it was just one of those things and left, feeling a few pairs of eyes on his back.

---

Chantelle was waiting anxiously for him when he pulled the truck up. It was dark and she had gotten worried. Olivia was in bed already.

'I know I'm late. Stopped at The Flying Duck, like everything's normal.' Tom explained as he stepped into the house leaving out the bit about his mistake at the bar. 'And I was delayed by cops on the road. Nothing serious. Oh, and some unexpected business' His wife didn't need to know he's been ass fucked and reamed a cop's rear hole. But she did need to know about the Mexican girl.

He sat Chantelle down and told her about the couple in the diner, about the Latino girl. How much he was sure they could make to cover their losses.

'We're not dealers. She isn't ours to sell,' said his wife when he finished. 'Neither's that other one, Colette. You spoken to her about where she's from?'

'Kept her gag in the whole way,' said Tom. 'The Latino girl - Chiquita I call her - probably doesn't speak English. She's been well whipped. I doubt she even knows what school is.'

'Honey, you know I don't want to nag, but this isn't looking good,' said Chantelle.

Tom didn't say anything. His wife was usually right.

'I heard something more about Franks,' Chantelle continued. 'I thought about calling you on the road but guessed it could wait till you got home. Now I'm not sure.'

'Why?'

'I heard - from Loretta over in Akron - that Franks was dealing in Mexican girls, shipping them in for some big business deal. Maybe they all do it, but he was in deep. The girls were for torture.'

Tom wasn't into torturing girls even though plenty of people were. But it wasn't usually his concern, so he shrugged. 'Like you say, it happens.'

'But Franks was killed,' Chantelle said pointedly. 'For crossing these people. Somehow, a rival group got the news of this shipment, tried to grab it all for themselves. Franks was blamed. I'm sure he wasn't killed over money!'

Tom felt a shiver run through him.

'Also, there was call,' continued Chantelle. 'About two hours ago. A man wanting to know if you worked for Franks.'

Tom's heart missed a beat, even though he wasn't part of any Mexican import deal. Apart from the one he'd picked up of course. 'You say yes?'

'I said yeah, occasionally.'

'He give his name?'

Chantelle shook her head.

'So what?'

'So plenty. Look honey, these people know about what you do and when.' Chantelle looked genuinely concerned.

'I don't have anything to hide,' said Tom, angered all this had reached his home, his family. 'I'm a registered, checked and fully taxed mover. I sure as hell wasn't moving illegals for Franks or anyone like him.'

'But they know you were shipping for him!'

'Calm down,' Tom ordered his wife. 'I'm just a small mover, they know that.'

'They know what they think is theirs is out there. And what happens if you've got one of them? This Chiquita kid you got could be one of them.'

'Could be, might not be. Franks wasn't the only one moving illegal girls in.'

Chantelle nodded. That much was true. She looked a little calmer, but not much. Then she said: 'The man who called also wanted to know if you had any extra in the shipment. An overload. I didn't say anything about the one you brought back, of course. Just said you were on schedule, the drop was done.'

'He buy that?' Tom looked at his wife, trying hard not to show all the doubts and misgivings he was feeling.

'I said six and two, as per the order.'

Tom blew a long breath out. He knew Chantelle was bright - more than that, dependable. She should have been with him on the delivery run. She wouldn't have made the stupid mistake at The Flying Duck with the girls. Probably wouldn't have stopped to whip Chiquita. Tom had the distinct and unhappy feeling already too many people knew about him and his movements. The old guy Sam, Kathy the hopeless desk clerk, the couple at the diner - perhaps the diner staff too - plus the cops on the road and now Jim at the bar. Then this guy calling up. He had a reason to ask, as maybe he had connections with those who slew Franks and burnt his place down.

Tom had the sensation a fish gets near a trawler, a distant awareness of the world shrinking and something not yet visible drawing in closer, sending faint eddies out. Something probably terminal. He resolved it was time to be fairly honest. 'Honey, don't be mad at me. I think Jim knows something about what I've done.' He hated to admit he had been stupid but there was no choice. 'I let something slip at the bar.'

Chantelle wasn't mad at him, but she was upset as she listened. They sat in silence for ten minutes before she said: 'We'd better get your two slaves in if we are to sell them. Recoup some money.'

'Honey, you sure?' Tom stared at his wife. 'You don't want me just to let them go?'

'Don't be crazy,' she smiled for the first time that evening. 'Let them go where? Into the woods?' She shook her head. 'No, we'll keep them. We could get six, maybe even eight for them if we really try hard.'

'But you haven't seen them.'

'You wouldn't have done all this if they weren't cute and wouldn't get a good price,' the woman grinned.

---

Chantelle was pleased with the two females when Tom brought them in. She made them stand side by side and examined them, running her fingers over their whip marks, their smooth skin where it wasn't bruised and marked. 'We need to clean this one - Chiquita - up if we are to get some good money for her. She's Latino and though she's good looking we might not get more than one point two for for her, a little more if people want the very young look.'

Tom's wife surveyed the Mexican, her filthy once-white pants, the coarse rope on her body, the way her knees were bound with wire. 'She's not been looked after,' sighed Chantelle. 'Look at that gag! It's cruel. I'll get her a new one.'

She was however glowing about Colette, eagerly running her hands over the girl's now naked body. 'This one however is really good. Cute and sexy.' To her credit, Colette didn't flinch as the woman's hands squeezed and fondled her impressive young bust. The girl even opened her legs as wide as her ankle chain would allow, in case the woman wanted to feel up between her legs. Chantelle didn't, at least for now. Men and women they said were the same essentially: they both couldn't resist feeling up a girl's pussy. Chantelle however continued: 'I can see us getting two and a half for her, easy.'

Tom looked disappointed at his wife's reaction. 'I was hoping for at least five, all told.'

'Oh honey, you know how I err on the side of pessimism,' Chantelle chuckled. 'I think you did very well. How much you pay for Chiquita? Two hundred? Hey, that's a great bargain. I think we can make more but you know me - I only believe in cash in the bank when it's there.'

'I know, I know. Child bondage markets are volatile,' Tom grunted, repeating what his wife always said. But she was right. Prices didn't always go up but delivery costs did.

'We can't leave them in the truck overnight,' said Chantelle firmly as she finished inspecting the two girls, who simply stood without fidgeting, eyes cast downward as every good child slave should. 'They need to be bathed and retied. How long's Chiquita had these ropes on? They're filthy.'

Tom smiled, glad his wife was so efficient.

---

The cop standing on the porch in the early morning light surveyed Tom Kinder as the bleary-eyed man opened the door to him. 'Sir, are you Tom Kinder?'

'Yeah. What's up, officer?'

'Uh, we had a complaint. Someone called and said local hauler's got two slaves in the truck overnight,' the cop said. 'Kids who belong to someone else.'

Kinder shook his head, still feeling thick-headed from his night's sleep. 'There's no one in the truck. I dropped my load off yesterday. Came home empty.' He asked: 'Girls or boys - or both?'

The cop was wearing shades and hadn't taken them off. He stood, not moving. Tom wondered what the officer was staring at, but then that was his job he figured. 'We had a report about two missing girls,' said the cop. He sounded hesitant - like he wasn't certain the source was reliable.

'Take a look if you don't believe me,' said Tom, indicating his truck close by the house. 'I'll open it up and you can check.'

The police officer nodded and Tom led him over to the van. He noticed the police car parked by the side with no one in it. Good sign, Tom thought: a serious enquiry would have brought two cops at least. Maybe more than one patrol car. This was probably a routine enquiry, though it was too specific and that troubled him.

As Tom opened the truck he said casually: 'You're calling early, officer. Must be only seven thirty. Glad you did though - I have to be on the road at nine. Got to pick up a relay.'

'Relay?' The cop was young and probably didn't know all the terminology of the slave moving business.

'Yeah,' the rear doors of Tom's truck was open and he indicated the officer should go in and look round. 'Relaying is me helping move slaves from one operator to another. Short haul stuff, mostly. Four Canadian kids. Hear they're going to Atlanta, but I'm only going as far as Philly.' It was all a lie but a convincing one.

The cop wasn't really listening by now. He opened all the individual cell doors and saw only empty travel seats. No girls.

'Can I take a look up front?' The cop nodded towards the cab.

'Be my guest,' said Tom, opening it up. There was no sign of any girl in there either. Only a few strands of an old hemp rope on the floor but the cop didn't pick it up.

'Everything okay honey?' Chantelle had come out of the house to the truck, robe wrapped round her and hair a mess. She looked concerned but relaxed enough.

'Sure. Officer here thinks we might have two kids in the truck.' Tom said without rancor or emotion, as if was all routine.

'Uh-huh,' said Chantelle. 'Who's lost them, officer?'

The young cop scratched his head. 'Don't rightly know, ma'am. We got a message from, um, a guy we know. He'd heard there were a couple of non-deliveries. Out of contract.'

'Not us,' said Chantelle. She subtly changed the conversation. 'You stationed over in Frederton?'

'Yes ma'am, why?'

'Wondered if Sergeant Jordan was still there,' said the woman smoothly.

'Sure is,' said the policeman, not wanting to get drawn into a discussion, good or bad, about fellow officers. He turned towards his patrol car, his job done here. 'Good day. Thanks for your co-operation.'

'Any time,' said Tom as he locked the truck, leaving Chantelle to wave the officer off.

'What do you think?' asked Tom as he and his wife walked back into the house.

'Not good. That wasn't routine, was it?'

'No. He was looking for two girls. Didn't give me a description though. But as the truck was clean I figure he'll be back with a warrant to look in the house.'

Chantelle nodded, deep in thought. 'Uh-huh, let's grab some breakfast and see to our guests. But one thing's plain: they can't stay here.'

'I know. But that cop was strange. I got the feeling he wasn't just asking for the law.'

Chantelle nodded slowly. The way she did when she wasn't comfortable about something.

---

They didn't get much chance to talk over breakfast, not with Olivia sitting playing with her cereal, looking at the two naked slaves. Colette and Chiquita were tied to chairs at the kitchen table - conventionally bound with arms behind them, legs tight together and lap rope to keep them from wriggling - and Olivia stared as her mom fed the two bound girls from a large bowl of porridge.

'Why aren't they gagged?' Olivia said suddenly. It was the first time Olivia had spoken since the two were brought down from the guest bedroom where they'd spent the night bound to the bed before being secured to their chairs by the table. Colette shot a look at Olivia when the girl spoke but put her eyes back down.

'We have to feed them,' said Chantelle, spooning some of the porridge into Chiquita. She wasn't sure the Mexican girl liked it but slaves knew they had no say in what they were fed. 'Where'd you hear about gags?'

'School. James Pullis, they got a slave. Said they gag him all the time.'

'Boy slave, really?' Tom looked at his daughter. 'You seen him?'

'No. But I saw Ashley's aunt's slave, when they visited. She was like her.' Olivia indicated Chiquita. 'Said she was cheap.'

'Latina,' said Tom, more to himself as he sipped his coffee. He glanced at his wife. 'Wonder if they got permits for her?'

Chantelle raised an eyebrow.

'Why'd people have slaves?' asked Olivia, abandoning her half-eaten flakes. 'And how come we got two?'

'Sweetcakes, this isn't the time to -' Chantelle began.

'It's okay, honey,' Tom said to his wife. 'She has to know sometime about all this.' He turned to his daughter. 'Kinda hard to explain how it all came about. Just one of those things. Social revolution they call it - not fighting and stuff, just, um...'

'Natural,' said Chantelle, now feeding some porridge to Colette who looked equally dubious about having yet more of it. 'People like small children tied up. Owning them is good. They say it had been going on for years secretly. Some things are better out in the open.'

'That's right,' picked up Tom. 'Government made it legal, finally. That means -'

'I know what legal is,' said Olivia. She was sat forward which was a sign this would be a long conversation. 'So why we got them?'

'I work as, um, a mover,' said Tom. 'The truck - it's fitted out for transporting child slaves to where people want them.'

'Sure,' said Olivia. 'I know that.'

'You do?' Tom was astonished.

'I can read, dad! The order papers, routes. Things called permits for transpor- uh, whatever. They were on the desk. I looked at them and figured it out.'

'Sorry,' said Chantelle to her husband with a resigned look. 'Guess I must have left them out.'

'I know all kinds of things,' said Olivia pointing at Chiquita, 'like I know that one is a Mexican.'

'Not necessarily -' began Tom, only to stop when his daughter glared at him.

'Dad! She's an illegal. I heard her talk Spanish, in the night.'

'But... I gagged them,' said Chantelle, puzzled. 'Both of them. They were gagged when I went in this morning.'

'I snuck in and took their gags out, while you both were asleep. I heard dad snoring so I slipped in.' The girl blushed suddenly. 'I was curious.'

'You saw them arrive when you were supposed to be in bed, right?' asked Tom, knowing the answer.

'You can't blame her,' sighed Chantelle towards her husband. 'Kids these days pick up so much so soon.' She looked at her daughter. 'So go on, what did you learn?'

'That one's Mexican from Chihuahua, but I only speak a few words of Spanish. I think her name's Chiquita. The other one's called Colette. She's French-Canadian. She don't speak much English.'

'So you put their gags back in and went back to bed,' said Tom, sensing his daughter was hiding something.

'Um, I played with them,' blushed Olivia.

'Like what exactly young lady?' Chantelle shared her husband's feeling too.

'I sort of played with their, um, chests.' The Kinder's child had slid down in her chair as if ashamed. 'I, um, y'know... uh...'

'You played with their nipples,' Tom finished the statement for Olivia. 'Honey, slaves aren't there to be played with.'

'Ashley did,' pouted Olivia. 'And she let her friend Joanne do it too.'

'But not you,' said Chantelle gently, 'so you thought you'd see what it was like.'

'But you gagged them, before you did it,' added Tom. 'I didn't hear any screams.'

Olivia blushed a little more. 'Um, after... after I sat on their faces. Before I put the gags back in. Just a little lick.'

Chantelle looked at Tom and shook her head - partly in amazement and partly to stop herself laughing.

'Okay,' said Tom, stifling his own grin. 'You know what we do and you have had some fun. But you ought to ask first, angel. They're cute but not ours to play with.'

'Why not?' asked the girl, sitting back up. She was watching as her mom put down the porridge spoon and was picking up the gags the two girls were wearing before breakfast.

'Because we don't know what to do,' said Chantelle with a little shake of her head. She started to put the gag in Colette's mouth and then stopped, a small smile on her face. 'Okay, sweetcakes, if you gagged them last night let me see how good you are at doing it. Bet you can't do it again.'

'Course I can,' snickered the eight year old, hopping off her seat and going round the table. 'It's easy! Jus' watch.'

Olivia seized the first gag and wedged it hard in Colette's half open mouth, making the French-Canadian eyes pop wide with the suddenness of it: the girl was used to being gagged but not so sharply. 'Take it easy,' smirked Tom. 'You're not supposed to break their jaws.'

'Sorry daddy,' muttered the child as she tugged the buckle tight and fastened it off. 'She didn't mind last night.'

'I expect last night she was glad to get the gag back in after your little slit had been over her face.' Chantelle grinned and winked at her husband, who was hugely enjoying this judging by the bulge in his pants. The two parents watched as Olivia gagged Chiquita, who groaned as the gag went in.

'She did that last night,' said Olivia. 'I was worried she might wake you.'

'Well we didn't hear,' said the child's mom. 'So, sweetcakes, now you've proved you can gag them properly let's clear up and do the breakfast dishes.'

Olivia pouted. 'Can't the slaves do it? That's what they're for, right?'

'Normally, yes,' said Tom, 'but they have to stay tied up for now. Plus, Mom and I have to discuss something before we decide anything.'

'Is it about that cop and - '

'He's a police officer,' corrected her mother.

'Okay. Is it about that police officer and the man who called last night?'

'You weren't asleep at all, were you?' Chantelle shook her head. 'Well, yes it is.' She looked at Tom and shuddered. 'Uh, I've got a bad feeling coming on. You have to get them out of here soon.'

'Then you better come with me. Both of you. I'm not leaving anyone here alone. The man who called last night knew our number so I guess he knows our address and as he may have been the one who terminated Franks, I don't trust him. We'll load these two into the trunk of your car and take them over to your mom's, in New Jersey.'

'That's not a good idea,' said Olivia slowly. Her surprised parents looked at her. The girl continued: 'You leave the truck here daddy and the cops - uh, the policemen - will think it's weird.'

'She's right,' agreed Chantelle. 'The truck's the best way to move them.'

'But what if there's a road check? A mover with two girls in it?'

Silence fell on the kitchen, and Olivia was the first to break it. 'I got an idea,' she said brightly. 'They wouldn't stop you with three girls in the back.'

'But we've only got two, sweetcakes. How are we going to get -' Chantelle took a sudden intake of breath, eyes wide. 'You mean, you'd... You can't!'

'Can't what?' Tom was irritated. He didn't get what was being said.

His wife turned to her husband. 'She wants to go in the truck. She wants to pretend to be a slave!'

'Yep,' said the child as if unconcerned. 'The cops'll look in, see me and these two and figure three isn't what they want.'

'B-but...' Tom couldn't think what to say.

'Your father's right,' said Chantelle, even though Tom hadn't actually said anything. 'You're not a slave. That won't work.'

'It will,' snapped the eight year old, folding her arms. 'I won't be a real slave. Just pretending. You'll let me out at Grandma's.'

Tom looked at his wife. 'You know honey, crazy though it seems she has a point. Trouble is, we don't have any papers for them.'

Chantelle stared at her husband as if he was crazy. Then back at her daughter like she was. 'I couldn't,' she said.

'I always wanted to go in the back of the truck,' said the girl pleadingly. 'I won't scream or fight or anything. Uh, I'll be a good prisoner.'

'You could forge some papers. You did it before, remember?' Tom was leaning on the table, anxiously gripping the edge.

'No,' said Chantelle flatly.

The phone rang. It was the same man who called the previous night, still wanting Tom and sounding even more sinister. It was worse still when he asked if the cops had been there yet. Chantelle slammed the handset down.

'We'll do it,' she said briskly. 'I'll get the blank papers signed up, you get the kids into the truck.'

---

There was no problem getting Chiquita and Colette into the truck, securing them to the travel chairs. Tom hesitated with his daughter however.

'Uh, you sure, sweetie?' He couldn't help thinking how small the eight year old was and how vulnerable she appeared, naked like the other two had been before he locked them in their cubicles. All she had on was the Kinder-preferred securer, the one he liked for all his deliveries: black vinyl and leather strengthened arm-binder.

'I'm okay daddy. I don't mind. It won't take that long to Grandma's will it?'

'Long enough if you're not used to being tied up. And gagged. I have to gag you, you know that.'

'Sure. I'll be okay. These chairs look cool,' she said. 'Shall I sit in it now or do you gag me first?'

Tom nodded. 'Gag first I'm afraid sweetcakes. The head rest makes it harder to fasten it.' He hesitated for a moment and then decided he had to do this, for all of them. 'Hold still angel while I put this in your mouth' He showed her the standard travel gag of red leather and then fastened it in her mouth. Part of him wanted to leave it a little loose, so it didn't hurt her mouth. But the part that won was the bit that said "this has to be real". He tightened like he had with the other two. 'Okay with that, Olivia?'

'Yttth,' the child said faintly, her pretty face just a little surprised at how it filled her mouth so well.

Tom nodded. 'Climb up angel and sit still while I secure you. Um, I have to do it tight, understood?'

The little girl nodded and did as she was told. Tom carefully, but tightly, fastened her arms to the chair sides, her body to the chair with chest and waist straps and then attached the ankle chain he put on her to the ring in the steel floor of the truck. It was standard safety procedure, what he did to them all. If she did get off the chair somehow, the padlock and chain would keep her in the cubicle, even if the door was unlocked and open.

It meant he had to lower the seat for the eight year old as the ankle chain was the official twelve inches and wouldn't reach the floor hook otherwise.

Tom stood up and regarded Olivia. She looked the part, sat like any other slave. He patted his daughter's little legs and strapped them at the knees. Just like he did with all the slaves he transported.

Chantelle arrived, holding several sheets of paper. 'Okay, maybe I didn't want this but she looks good,' she said. 'So, here're the papers for her. She's Ashley Jo Burton from North Dakota. I figured on an out of the way place so any cops who stop us aren't likely to have been in contact with agencies over there.'

'And we're taking these three slaves to where?'

'Newark, naturally. There's a well-known dealer there called Kircek. Mrs Ann Kircek. We'll use her name if we have to. Oh, and we're doing this on behalf of Western Bound,' she flourished a light yellow sheet of paper with the WB logo on it. 'Contract job so we don't know too much about them.'

Great,' said Tom. 'Let's go.'

'Hang in there sweetcakes,' smiled Chantelle to her bound and gagged daughter. 'You look real good.'

Tom winked at his daughter and locked the cubicle.

---

'Weird, huh?' said Chantelle as they pulled out on to the road that would lead them to the Interstate - and New Jersey. 'Three kids in the back and one of them is our daughter. Sure can't tell she isn't a natural slave girl.'

'How you feel about it?' Tom glanced at his wife next to him.

'About what? Olivia as a slave?' Chantelle thought for a few moments. 'Guess it's a conflict.'

'Me too.'

'I don't want to see her as someone else's slave. No mother really wants that unless they have to. But she looks so damn cute all trussed and gagged. I think it's the gag that gets me most of all. Kinda makes her eyes look so appealing. I wonder if we ought to think about her being tied up at home from time to time. I mean, we got the equipment and it wouldn't so any harm. She's like it, I guess.'

'Slaves don't have to like it. You might want to punish her for not helping round the home,' laughed Tom. 'You can borrow my flogger.' He patted the flogger he always carried on a run.

Before his wife could answer Tom hit the brakes. Ahead there was a road block, or an accident - a tanker across the road, a police car and another vehicle. A cop holding his hand up.

Tom groaned: it was the cop who had called that morning. 'Just relax,' he said to Chantelle, aware she was looking at her husband in alarm. 'We'll bluff it out. We got the papers, right?'

Tom got out of the cab as casually as he could and walked up to the cop he'd met that morning. 'Hi, officer. Problem here?'

'Routine check,' said the other cop, older and fatter. Sergeant Jordan from Frederton, Tom knew instantly when the man took his sunglasses off.

'Thought it was an accident,' Tom indicated the tanker at a crazy angle, blocking the road.

No one said anything. Tom looked at the car to one side. There was a man behind the wheel, a woman in the back. He had that sense of fishes and trawling nets again, except he could see it closing now.

'Sir?' The younger cop was talking, bringing Tom back. 'We need to check your journey.'

'Oh sure. Go ahead. My wife's got all the papers.' Tom couldn't be sure but he thought the two officers exchanged the merest look.

The younger cop went to Chantelle's side and she handed the cop the papers. He rifled through them. 'Three, all female,' he called to the sergeant. Jordan looked at the waiting car as if to get permission.

Alarm spread in Tom. 'What's going on?' he asked, trying not to show how nervous he was.

'We have to look inside, sir,' said Jordan. 'Check the slaves.'

'Why?' Tom wanted to know.

'Police business.'

Tom was about to say that this was a crazy kind of police business but the younger officer had arrived back next to the sergeant. 'He said four, at his place,' the officer intoned. 'These papers sure say three.'

'Change of plan,' shrugged Tom. 'It happens in this business.'

'Open her up,' said Jordan, a hint of menace in his voice. 'And bring the kids out. You can tie them to those trees over there.'

Tom understood this wasn't going to be easy. Back at the cab he whispered to Chantelle: 'Stay in the cab. I'll try to sort it out.'

She nodded, slowly.

The girls were taken out one by one by Tom and each tied to a tree: Colette first, then Chiquita. Finally Olivia. The Kinder child looked bewildered as she was brought out, scared by the police being there. The younger one was waving vehicles through a small gap they'd left to one side of the tanker, so they weren't blocking the road entirely. 'Just act natural, don't worry,' whispered Tom as he led his daughter out of the truck, but Olivia wasn't going to be calmed that easy.

The girl made some mmmphing sounds into her gag and tried to hold back. Tom had no choice but to push her forward. On two trees the two regular slaves were standing, arms still in their arm-binders but with backs to the trees. The police had told Tom to tie them so their legs were spread as wide as the ankle chains would allow, necks secured by rope to the tree trunks so their arms were trapped behind them. There was another rope, round their chests, triple stranded. The gags of course were still in.

Tom negotiated his daughter to the third tree, next to Chiquita. He tied her as efficiently as the others, worried about her but trying to play it like he would with any slave.

Jordan, he noted, was grinning. Tom shot a look at his wife, still in the cab. She wasn't moving but the younger cop was talking to her. Tom watched his wife shrug, appear to say something and then reluctantly climb out.

This was getting worse, he thought. The younger cop had hold of his wife's arm, leading her towards the scene. Tom had a distinct feeling that she was going to participate somehow. He felt Jordan was looking at him, at his flogger and he guessed what this was about: Chantelle would be told to whip the three slaves.

Either they got off on seeing women flog bound girls or more likely suspected his daughter was the third and they wanted to see Chantelle flog her daughter, because they knew. A 678 punishment, they called it. Chest, stomach, inside thighs in twenty one blows. Six, seven, eight slashes descending down the slave's body with four on each inside thigh. The slaves would scream into their gags at that, even hardened ones like Colette.

For Olivia, it would be akin to the worst pain ever.

'Go ahead,' said Jordan to Tom. 'Give your good wife your flogger, get her to do it to all three. I guess she won't mind.'

'This is fucking wrong,' said Tom hotly. 'You haven't got the right to do all thi -'

'We have and you damn well know it,' barked Jordan, his face set cold. 'Anyhow, who you gonna complain to after what you done?'

Tom took a deep breath, thought about laying these two cops out but the chance of that and getting away with it was, respectively less than one per cent and zero. He handed Chantelle his flogger with a small shake of his head.

Chantelle gave him a weak smile as if it was better not to arouse anyone's anger and took the handle. She tested it as one usually did with a couple of loud cracks. Tom, out of the corner of his eye, could see Olivia flinching, terrified. Pressing back against the tree as if trying to melt through it.

'Go on,' growled the sergeant. Chantelle gave him a look of pure hate and then began. She knew the 678, and delivered it perfectly and steadily to the writhing Colette, her gag-muffled screams filling the air. Then to Chiquita with the same results.

Finally, with the merest hesitation, to her own daughter. Those watching couldn't see the tears in Chantelle's eyes as she labored, delivering the steady, even paced blows to the screaming, twisting Olivia. She tried not to hold back in case someone demanded she do it again. All twenty one, but she hoped her arms was a little tired and the blows didn't hurt as they had with the other two.

But Olivia wasn't used to this. She sagged in her ropes as the last blows landed on her open legs and for a moment Tom feared she would choke. But he was pleased to see his little girl was made of stronger stuff than he dared hope and she straightened up, tears running copiously down her face. Wet rivers down over her gag strap, dripping from her jaw on to her savagely marked flat chest.

'Good,' said the woman who had got out of the car to watch more closely.

Tom didn't need any introduction. He guessed by her expensive clothes, her air of superiority and what he could only describe as a dark smoldering of evil that this was Ms Ellen Anders. She had that feel of a person who never cared about anyone but herself.

Chantelle was staring at her too and Tom could tell his wife had a similar idea of the woman. Ellen Anders had jet black hair but vivid blue eyes, and a white scar that ran down one cheek as she'd been in a cat-fight once. Tom couldn't imagine she lost, or if she had, she would have had her revenge many times over. She looked about Chantelle's age - around 35.

The wealthy looking woman nodded to Chantelle with a small smile. 'You did well. Chantelle, isn't it?'

Hell, thought Tom. She even knows my wife's name.

'But now,' continued the woman, 'I take them over. Officers, would you mind untying them and putting them in my car. I will take them at once.'

Tom started forward but Jordan had his gun out. Not pointing, but ready. It would be an unequal contest, Tom knew. He felt Chantelle looking at him as if to say, don't be stupid.

They both watched as the younger cop untied the three girls one by one and led them over to the car, pushing them into the back seat. Tom caught Olivia's eye as she was led past them. She looked terrified and hurt, but not entirely without some spark of defiance still in her.

Chantelle turned her attention to Anders as she watched her daughter marched to the car. 'They're not yours,' she said quietly.

'They are now,' purred the woman, lighting a cigarette slowly, enjoying all this. 'Consider it a small payment for what I lost on the road the other day. Guess I can make a little money out of these three.' She paused for a moment, drawing in smoke and blowing it out slowly. 'Oh, and don't think I want to see either of you again. Our business is concluded.'

The woman flicked the cigarette to the road and turned on her high heels and clicked her way back to her car. In a few moments it was pulling away and the last view the Kinders had of their daughter was as one of three gagged girls in the back.

The tanker was being moved and the cops getting in their patrol car, their job done for Ms Anders.

The vehicles drove off and a slow silence fell on the road.

'Business ain't done. She'll see us again,' said Chantelle grimly, staring along the road to where Anders' car had disappeared round the bend. 'And she'll wish she hadn't when we get Olivia back.'

Tom nodded. He knew his wife meant every word she said.