Radam left us with Kaust, and for one last time, we got to spend the night as friends and lovers. We shared everything with him. We confessed our love, and made it. We talked about our childhood together, and then, shared the one secret we never have before.

Most know they can't tell us apart. Others think they can. He knows.

No, I won't tell you how. Don't bother asking Kaust, he won't tell you either.

I had never cried like that before, I didn't know at times if it was out of joy or pain. At times I am certain it was both.

It made the morning easier, knowing we had gotten it all out. Still, as we were lead to the waiting area for the auctions, that feeling was back. The same one I had when we went to them that first day, which seemed so long ago by then. Like your on the verge of being ill, but not quite there. It's so hard to do justice with mere words. Dread, anyway.

I suppose that I still somewhere entertained the hope that we would not sell. That we could go back with them, and put this all behind us. That this was all some sort of horrible dream. That I would be back with my mother and father, and live my life out as a simple tailor.

I also knew the truth. We would sell. We would be sent the gods only know where. We would probably never see our family or, well, I guess they were family too, Radam and Kaust. In a way, they had become an extension of that part of our world. We would tend for some man's pleasure, some one we had never met, and probably many others over the years to come, with no choice in who or when.

But we would be together, and we would never have to hide our love for each other ever again. We would never have to worry about our next meal, or about having a roof over our heads. We would never again know the dread of wondering how we would get more coin, in fact, it would never pass our paws again.

Bittersweet is the term that covered it the best, I suppose.

The world is a strange place.

There is an area behind stage where you are dropped off if you are to be sold. It's filled with nervous slaves, auctioneers, people busy filling out bills of sale. Barely ordered chaos if you ask me.

The crowd of slaves where were barely dressed, like us. This auction was held to the end of the week so that the expensive stuff could be inspected, so word could be gotten back from buyers to the agents and back, and so on. Pleasure slaves, the lot of us.

Females outnumbered the males, though not by too much. For whatever reason it was less seemly for a female noble to keep a male pleasure toy than other arrangements. I believe it originally had something to do with linage, though one would think that would not be a problem if you had a different breed as a slave.

Then again, court politics rarely make sense to me.

We were facing each other with our hands together. We had developed something of a habit of this since we had gotten used to being open about our feelings. There was not much to say, we could tell what the other was feeling looking at him. I suppose we would have known anyway, considering.

I saw him look up behind me a moment before I felt the hands on my should. The little smile kept me from startling. I knew it was someone safe from that look. I was pretty sure in a few minutes as those hands started to rub in a familiar way.

“Hello, Jea'shin.”

We all hugged, it was nice to see a familiar face at a time like this.

There was a bit to talk about, we caught each up on how our various inspections went in more detail than was necessary. I guess just to keep the conversation going, we were all nervous. Eventually the subject turned to how much we thought we would each sell for.

She had been through this all once before. Her first Master was killed in a duel. I guess she was not all that attached to him from how she spoke, but neither did she seem happy it had happened. The family had not wanted to keep her around, apparently she reminded them off the loss.

I think she had become good at knowing what subjects to avoid. She never asked how things went saying goodbye to Kaust.

Some slaves don't care what they sell for. They don't see a copper out of it, so why should they? There are some exceptions, either cases like us where it was going somewhere we did have an interest in, or simply pride.

The later was the most common with pleasure slaves. We are worth more than almost any other slave, and we are cared for better because of it. I guess there was some bragging rights involved, too. When you are worth gold instead of silver, it does feel good. It's honestly silly, but most things involving pride are when you come down to it.

Anyway, as we started to speculate, the little clumps of chatting slaves merged together to share their thoughts. The more experienced ones had some pretty solid guesses as to amounts. The prices could, it seemed, range from a few gold to twenty or so.

Soon we found ourselves the subject of the most speculation, though. I guess that's not surprising since none of them had ever seen a pair like us, either twins, or being sold together. Surprising or not, it was rather embarrassing. I think more so because these were our equals, the few people in the world we could address as such.

Would we get double the price of a normal pleasure slave because there were two of us? Would we get less than that because of the restriction on our sale? Would we get more because we were twins? We wer e not experienced, and that could influence it either way. Once it became obvious thanks to Jea'shin that we were outright lovers, that seemed to inflate the estimated price some.

All told they were guessing somewhere between fifteen and thirty.

I don't think I'd ever conceived of that much coin before.

The slavers obviously heard us talking. I think they let us chat away because it both relaxed us, and because our discussing our worth would likely get us to try and get more for ourselves.

One by one we got to find out just how good our guesses were.

They had two auctioneers trading off for this sale. One would come back, pick up a slave, ask them a few questions about their experience and skills that were not covered by their papers, and then give them last minute directions on how to present themselves. That varied between both auctioneers, and how they felt different slaves would best be shown.

Jea'shin went before us, and we paid as close attention to her auction as we could. It was a bit hard to hear back here, it was a bit noisy, and there was a wall between us and the auction.

When she came back she confirmed what we thought we had heard. She went for seventeen and twenty silver. She was quite pleased with herself. Not quite the highest of the day, but pretty close. She was also fairly sure that she was bought by a agent, so she had no idea who she was actually bought for.

Our turn came soon enough. Sooner than I think I'd have liked. Then again I don't think I'd have much liked any time. Like the other's, we were to be auctioned in the nude. After all, that is a big part of what we are sold for. So we handed our loincloths to Jea'shin to watch for us.

We were allowed to keep our hair in ponytails. Somehow I felt a bit less vulnerable wearing that strip of leather in my hair. I mean, I was wearing something, right?

Yeah, it didn't make a lot of sense.

My heart was pounding as we were lead onto stage. We stood side by side as told, and kept our eyes to the front edge of the stage. Not enough to bow our heads, but enough that we were not looking anyone in the eye. That would have been inappropriate, and we needed to show our obedience. He read off our skills and terms, the fact that we were sold to settle a family debt, and so on. Stuff that any buyer really interested in us knew anyway.

He didn't seem to exactly know what to say about how we felt for each other, and he said something about us showing a willingness to perform with each other. As he was trying to get that out, I felt my brother's hand squeeze mine, and I looked up at him. Sometimes I believe that we can read each other's minds, and this was one of those times. It brought back the memory of what that raccoon had said to us, and this was our chance. Now or never.

We turned to each other while those words were coming from the auctioneers lips, wrapped our arms around each other, one low on the hip, one sliding up behind the other's head in a mirror image of each other. We gazed into each other's eyes for a moment longer, and then our muzzles met.

I had to both put the sight of that room out of my mind, and at the same time know what we were doing. I was terrified, and so very... I'm not sure what the word is. I wanted to do this. I wanted to show the world what I felt for him. It sent a rush of joy through me to equal the terror.

As we parted our lips and embrace, to stand side by side again, we held hands. I know our embarrassment at what we had done was showing in the way we held our ears and tails, and just our posture. The fact that I was certain the arousal that rushed through me in the moment our bodies touched was obvious only made it worse.

It was quiet. It felt like forever, though it could not have been more than a few seconds.

“Well, there you have it. That's something money can't buy... Except today. Do I have an opening bid?”

He did. And many to follow, it, too. He had my brother turn around at some point, so that I faced the crowd, and the he displayed his back. How often can you show both sides to the audience at the same time? I think he did that for the novelty factor as much as just showing off how we looked.

The first bid took a moment from the startled crowd, but they followed quickly from there. It started low, a few gold. There is always someone hoping to get a bargain. Quickly it went through the twenties into the thirties. It was slowing down as it got close to forty, when I heard a voice I would swear was familiar.

“Fifty five.”

That got silence. Even from the auctioneer, though he recovered quickly, to his credit.

“Fifty five, do I hear sixty?”

“Fifty five, going once.”

“Fifty five, going twice.”

And with a crack of the gavel, “Sold, for fifty five gold!”