I stand on the auction block, a wooden pallet raised above the sand. The heat licks through the thin black nylon stockings, cooking the soles of my feet. And my panties . And my veil and glints, on the padlocked cage between my thighs 

Around me, the camel market continues. Grunting beasts, the salt-smell of hides. A camel goes for eight hundred and twenty riyals. Another, younger and stronger, fetches nine-fifty. I hear the bids in Arabic, numbers I can almost follow, and my caged clitty gives a single, useless twitch. That’s more than I’ll bring. Far more.

My lot number is 47. They’ve written it on a paper tag and pinned it to the waistband of my little black panties, where the satin bows sit against my hipbones.

A plug fills me from behind—a smooth, rounded weight that shifts with each shallow breath. My stockings end mid-thigh, held by garters that dig in just enough to remind me I have flesh. The veil is black lace, heavy, draping from a headband down over my nose and lips so that only my black kholed eyes are visible.

I am the special lot. The auctioneer said so when he led me here: “After the prime stock, gentlemen, a novelty.”

Now the camel men are drifting over. Five of them, maybe six. They smell of cardamom and diesel and the musk of men who’ve been standing in the sun with money in their pockets. They form a loose half-circle at the edge of the pallet. Nobody speaks to me. They speak about me, their voices a low rumble I can almost feel through the wood.

“This one.”

“Very small.”

“Its face is covered—why. Is it ugly?”

The other men laugh . 

The auctioneer, a stout man with a gold tooth, laughs. “It adds to the mystery, my friend. You bid, you unveil.”

My clitty strains. The cage holds it in a half-bow, a bent little prayer, and the pressure sends a dull ache up into my belly. I don’t move. I’ve been told not to move. My hands are bound,  behind my back and the sensation of the plug is a constant. With every twitch of my caged clitty, something inside me clenches around it, and I have to fight not to make a sound.

One of the men steps closer. His sandals scuff the pallet. He’s older, fifties maybe, with a trimmed grey beard and sunglasses pushed up onto his forehead. He reaches out.

A finger presses against the padlock of my cage through the black satin of my panties. Just a press. Not hard. He might be testing the weight of it, My hips jerk before I can stop them. The plug shifts—deeper, somehow—and a thin, high noise escapes my throat.

The men laugh. 

The grey-bearded man’s finger traces the outline of the cage down to where my useless little sack bunches behind the ring. “This is the only lock?”

“Key is in my pocket,” the auctioneer says. “Comes with the lot.”

“Good.”

My eyes are watering and the kohl is running down my cheeks . Not from crying, but from the forbidden thrill and  the humiliation. 

The man withdraws his hand and my hips chase it for a half-inch before I catch myself. The laughter rumbles again. 

Another man, younger and broader shouldered, circles behind me. I feel his shadow block the sun Then his thumb hooks into the waistband of my panties and pulls them down, just an inch, just enough to expose the base of the plug where the flared silicone meets my skin. He doesn’t touch the plug itself. He touches the skin around it—the stretched, hot, lubricated rim.

“Prepared,” he observes.

“Of course,” the auctioneer says. “Ready for immediate use. No training required.”

Immediate use. My caged clitty flutters like a trapped moth. I am leaking. I can feel it, a slick thread running from the cage’s slit down onto my thigh, darkening the stocking. The men notice. The grey-bearded one points.

“Look. It’s excited.”

“Maybe it understands the bids will start soon.”

“Or maybe it likes being touched. Some of them do.”

The younger man withdraws his thumb from my rim and, instead, taps once on the end of the plug. It’s a light tap—a knuckle, really—but the vibration travels straight up and into a place that makes my vision blur. My knees unlock. I nearly go down. The only thing that keeps me upright is the older man’s hand clamping onto my hip, fingers sinking into the lace-edged garter belt.

“Easy,” he murmurs. It’s the first time any of them has spoken directly to me. His voice is close, near my ear, and the veil catches the heat of his breath. “Good girl. Stay standing.”

Good girl. The words land somewhere deeper than the plug. My throat closes around another noise. I am a good girl. I want to be a good girl. The cage throbs in its pink prison, and I feel the drool of pre-cum slide further down my thigh.

“Starting bid,” the auctioneer announces, his voice cutting through my haze, “one hundred riyals.”

One hundred. The camel before me went for nearly ten times that. Humiliation floods my belly, hot and dark, but it’s a humiliation that feeds on itself. My caged clitty  leaks harder. The men see it. They grin.

“One-fifty,” says the grey-bearded man, not raising his hand, just tilting his chin.

“One-fifty I have. Who offers two hundred?”

“Is it branded? Marked?” Asks the younger man, 

“Not yet,” the auctioneer says. “The buyer may do as he wishes.”

“Two hundred,” the younger man says.

I am being sold. The plug inside me is no longer a weight; it’s a presence, something alive that shifts and nuzzles with every clench of my body. The stockings are wet at the thighs. My panties are damp through the satin. The paper tag on my hip flutters, lot 47, lot 47, lot 47.

Grey-beard steps back and crosses his arms. “Four-fifty,” he says, and his voice is quiet but it cuts through the noise. The other bidders pause.

The younger man behind me removes his hand from my waist. He walks around to face me, looks into my eyes through the veil. “You want the grey beard to win?” he asks me, as if my opinion matters. “Or do you want to come home with me?”

My mouth opens. No sound.

“I don’t—” I start, and my voice is a ruined whisper. “I don’t choose.”

“No,” the young man agrees, and his grin is sharp. “You don’t.”

“Five hundred,” he says to the auctioneer.

The auctioneer’s gold tooth flashes. “Five hundred! A respectable sum. Do I hear five-fifty? Going once—”

The older man steps forward. 600 he says . 

The auctioneer’s gavel hovers. My caged clitty convulses so hard I feel it in my teeth. The plug is a warm, full promise, and my hole tightens around it as if we’re home already 

“Sold,” the auctioneer crows, and the gavel cracks down on the block.