Worthless (Camren)

"The Market"

When they say a car loses a certain percentage of its original value the moment you drive it off the lot, what they mean is that the value of a car decreases in the years you own it and is therefore not to be viewed as an investment. The same is true for slaves and, just as it is with cars; the rate at which a slave's value decreases is determined by a number of factors.

One of these factors is the slave's age, slave children are usually allowed to remain in their parent's care until the age of 14 if the slave's owner doesn't decide otherwise. Slave traders are obligated to sell children with their parents, although, to be fair, no one really investigates whether or not they really do. Then again, no one ever seems to investigate anything concerning the treatment of slaves. Slaves are considered most valuable in their teens and early twenties. After that, their value decreases rather rapidly, but since slaves hardly ever live to their 40's, this drop in value hardly concerns anyone.

Other factors such as skills, strength, obedience, training and experience are factors that aren't as easily quantifiable and are usually assessed by the slave traders for each slave individually.

The most important factor, however, is the purpose a slave is used for. Slaves that are used for hard labour may expire rapidly if they are not well taken care of, but, if treated well, their value may even increase as they gain strength and skill.

This does not apply to pleasure slaves. Pleasure slaves are the most frequently re-sold type of slave, since their owners get bored of them rather quickly, which makes the pleasure slave market one of the biggest slave markets there is.

Beauty is a curse for slaves. Only the prettiest of slave children are taken to be sold as pleasure slaves, usually at an age as early as 12. From the moment their virginity is taken, their worth only decreases. The first time a pleasure slave is re-sold their price will be somewhere around 50% of the price they were originally sold for. After the second owner they'll be worth 25% of their original price.

To inform their customers about the number of owners the slaves have had, slave traders will often arrange their slaves in lines under banners that say "NEW", "50% off", "75% off", "87,5% off" or "93,75% off". Each slave has to undergo a medical examination before they can be re-sold. If a pleasure slave contracts a sexually transmitted infection or disease their worth immediately drops to zero. The costs for medical treatment usually exceed the slave's value so slave traders usually don't pay for treatment. Those slaves are either 'put down' immediately or put under a sign that says "100% off" as an indicator to their predicament, they can be bought for miniscule sums, though they usually aren't since no one ever choses a diseased slave over a healthy one. And a healthy slave with 3 previous owners is easily affordable as well, which is why most traders don't even bother announcing to the world that they even have a diseased slave in their lot and just get rid of them right away.

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Her father had taken Lauren to slave markets on multiple occasions, so Lauren knew how to talk to slave traders and what various banners indicated. But Mike had never let Lauren go anywhere near pleasure slave markets. Now, standing in the middle of one of the biggest travelling pleasure slave markets that had put up its auction tents in Miami, Florida for the weekend, she understood why.

Rows and rows of slaves were lined up as far as she could see, their bodies scantily clad if not completely exposed. All of them were looking at the ground in what was supposed to be a respectful position, but the truth was that most of them had been trained to stand like this since their early childhood that the position held no meaning any longer. It was a rather chilly autumn day and the slaves were all trying to suppress tremors that threatened to shake their bodies because of the cold wind. She was somewhat glad to see that they had at least been given permission to wear shoes.

"Damn it, we should have come earlier, I hope there's still some good ones here somewhere", Normani mumbled under her breath so only Lauren could hear her.

"How can you even talk like that", she hissed "They're people!"

"You agreed to come, not my fault if you don't wanna be here!" Normani said.

"I'm here, because you are holding my new Bob Marley album hostage and you threatened to burn it if I didn't give you a ride here!", she pointed out.

"Whatever, I'm gonna go look for my birthday present. You can go pluck your eyebrows or whatever", Normani said before wandering off. Lauren could tell her insults were half-hearted.
She would never admit it, but Normani was nervous. The real reason she had chosen to blackmail Lauren into helping her wasn't because she needed a ride, but because Lauren was the only person in their group who knew her way around a slave market. Her father's shop 'Jauregui's Tire and Lube' was the home of many slaves. Most people didn't bother trying to teach slaves valuable skills, since most people didn't even really consider them human, but Mike Jauregui didn't believe that. He liked buying 'cheap' slaves off the markets and teaching them all he could about cars. He took them in and gave them a roof over their heads, three big meals a day and an education. So far he had been able to turn each and every one of the ten slaves they had had in the past decade into a great mechanic.

What the Jauregui slaves didn't know and what Lauren had had no idea about either until it happened for the first time three years ago, was that Mike Jauregui didn't keep the slaves in his possession. After ten years he set them free with a bank account into which he had paid a monthly salary, not much less than he would have to pay a non-slave, for every month they had been with them. The difference was just enough to cover the additional housing costs etc. just enough to make sure that Jauregui's Tire and Lube was still making enough money. It was a generous stepping stone into an independent life for a slave. He also offered them the opportunity to stay employed at Jauregui's Tire and Lube, which so far every slave had happily agreed to. Of the three men who had been the Jauregui's slaves for over ten years, two had remained with them, while another one had left to get married and start a new life. Lauren was proud of her dad.