Renegades

When the alarm clock rang at 6:00 am on Wednesday May 14, 2031, Nicky was already gone and I found a note taped to the clock.

"Sorry to leave early but I had to take care of a couple more details this morning. Meet me at the fire hydrant in front of the coffee shop at 7:25 sharp. Don't be even a second late. Dress for action; we'll be moving fast. Leave your phone, your wallet, and your purse at home but bring all the cash you've got. Don't look around or act like anything's up – just act natural and follow my lead. Flush this note after reading. Love, Nicky"

I had a bad feeling about this, really bad. If it went wrong, we'd be totally screwed and we could end up spending the next six years of our lives as sex slaves in a godforsaken foreign brothel. A few days ago, I didn't even believe that it was possible that I'd end up as a whore but, if Nicky's plan didn't work, in a couple of days, I could be laying on a bed somewhere on another continent with my legs spread and as guy after guy pounds away on me.

The more I thought about the possibility of becoming a slave, the more it frightened me to the point I had difficulty thinking straight, I flushed the note, fixed my hair, applied my makeup, and dressed in my favorite outfit, a navy blue skirt suit with matching pumps and some designer lingerie. If there was even a possibility that I was going to be stripped, shackled, and enslaved today, I wanted to be sure that I was wearing clean, decent looking, underwear so I picked out my undies carefully. I only had $63.00, no one carried much cash anymore, but I did as instructed and stuffed it into a pocket of my blazer.

We only lived a couple of blocks from the office, within easy walking distance. So I left the apartment at 6:45 and took my time. I didn't want to be too early and just hang around a fire hydrant. It would look suspicious.

As I walked down the street, I noticed a plumbing contracting crew fixing a broken water main at an apartment building. The two older men sat on a back hoe and seemed to enjoy watching a young slave work. The boy was thigh deep in a ditch filled with muddy water shoveling out clay and gravel. The slave was maybe 23, athletic, attractive, and completely naked except for gloves on his hands and his slave collar. Covered in mud, the young man was breathing heavily and looked exhausted.

From the looks of his manhood, the water was cold but the older men were in no hurry to relieve him. The older plumbers just watched him shovel and smiled.

I didn't know why the slave was naked. Maybe he was forced to work nude by a perverted gay master or maybe it was the slave's decision to strip as he preferred to work in the muddy ditch without clothes. What I knew for sure was that, if the next half hour didn't work out right, tomorrow, I could be standing naked in that ditch with my muddy twat and ass on display, breathing heavily, and working my ass off digging out a broken water line with a shovel while a couple of old men got their jollies by watching me work.

On a different day, I'd have called to the slave, waved at him, told him he looked really cute, asked him his name, and smiled at him just to make the boy feel better. But today wasn't that day. Today I was too nervous to flirt, too embarrassed by my slave collar, and in too much of hurry.

Even with traffic, I arrived at a couple of minutes past seven. Ducking in a coffee shop on the first floor of our office building (our office was on the second floor), I spent a few dollars of my cash on a large Italian Roast. I liked coffee and needed an excuse just to stand by a fire hydrant and do nothing without raising suspicion. Walking outside to the fire hydrant, I opened the lid and blew on the coffee to let it cool.

Trembling in fear, I looked back at the clock in the coffee shop, 7:18; whatever was going to happen would go down in just seven minutes and its success or failure would determine whether I spent the next six years of my life as a free woman or as a slave, as a business owner or as a whore, as a person or as property, in tailored clothes or naked, wearing jewelry or wearing shackles, on the sidewalk or in the ditch. My fate hung in the balance.

There was a small motorcycle parked against the fire hydrant, the type some of the couriers used for deliveries. Stenciled on a storage box hanging off the back was the words Lanny's Pizza and Deli. It wasn't unusual. Couriers and delivery boys often parked their motorcycles there when they were getting a cup of coffee.

I leaned against the motorcycle seat and I blew on the coffee a few times before testing the temperature of the drink with my lips. The delivery boys never took offense to a pretty woman leaning on their bike and I didn't have anywhere else to sit. It was still a little too hot but I enjoyed hot cup of coffee and gingerly took a tiny sip anyway. It might be another six years before I got to taste coffee again again so I savored every drop. Slaves didn't eat or drink whatever they wanted, they ate or drank whatever they were provided, usually low cost, bland, unseasoned, and tasteless. Luxuries, such as coffee, were rare.

I desperately wanted to look around but thought better of it. Still, I could help one quick glance and it scared the crap out of me. Only half a block away, maybe 70 yards, there was the gray van with Mr. Davis and Mr. Rodriguez in it looking right at me. They looked suspicious, really suspicious. Frightened, I took another couple of sips of my precious coffee and tried to settle my nerves. I just wished Nicky had let me know a little more about her plan but she tended to micro-manage when we were in trouble. I didn't know if that was just her style or if she didn't trust me.

Someone moving fast came up from behind me, grabbed my arm roughly, and pulled me forward. It was Nicky.

"Lose the coffee," Nicky said sternly and I tossed it aside just as a cab came to a stop in front of the hydrant. Quickly, Nicky opened the door to the cab and pushed me it. There was already a passenger in the back seat, a twenty-something young man, pulling a huge bolt cutter out from under his sweatshirt as I got in. I recognized the guy, he was a friend of Kurt's. As the cabbie glanced back he saw my collar and did a double take. Then, his eyes flew open in panic and his jaw dropped as he saw the bolt cutters.

"Oh my God! No, no, no, stop that. You can't do that here," the terrified cabbie shouted.

Everyone knew that aiding and abetting an escaping slave in any way was a felony that carried a minimum two year category II enslavement. It was the type of thing that could cause the cabbie to spend the next two or three years of his life bent over in a gay bordello in Africa or ankle deep in mud planting rice in Asia.

The Kurt's friend shoved one of the blades of his tool under my collar and jammed the handles together as hard as he could. CHUNK! My collar fell in the floor; there was no turning back, now I was a renegade.

Frantically, I looked back at the gray van. Mr. Davis and Mr. Rodriguez were already out of the van, dodging traffic, and running towards us as fast as they could.

"Ahhh," I shrieked, "They're coming."

CHUNK! Nicky's collar landed in my lap.