HOW MUCH IS SHE?

Ash Lomen

"How m-m-much, like, is she?"

Granwell asked in a shaky voice, viewing the shivering naked young woman with wide eyes kneeling before him in a transparent hovertube. Her modesty was long gone, slaughtered along with her innocence. She barely attempted to conceal her breasts before the two visitors, one of them probably the first human face she had seen in ages.

"A million. Exactly," said the Valdrott, its form hideous beyond description... it was a swelling mass of perversity-made-flesh.

"My G-God, that's all… I mean …look, I c-can't… fuckin' do this," Granwell stammered.

"God doesn't exist and you humans have been keeping slaves for millennia."

"We've stopped. We've e-evolved."

"Bullshit… as you so often like to say. Slavery is still very common on earth… your Global Capitalism simply froths at the mouth for it. It just goes under a different name." The Valdrott's English was perfect, without any discernable accent, even puckered out of its anus-like mouth.

"One million," it continued, "I'll even throw in her mother for free."

The mother. Granwell's perversion went into overdrive.

"D-D-Deal,” Granwell managed to choke out.

Later, Granwell realized how strange the idea of handing over a leather briefcase of Global Credits to an otherworldly alien was…. but he didn't ask questions. The Valdrott had always provided him the same courtesy.

…

After the human male had departed with his two new slaves, the females just happy to be together once again, having no idea of their new master's perverse intentions, the Valdrott disposed of the briefcase in the incinerator and began to make notes on the study it had just conducted.