My ears perked up at the new sound outside the cells, a bit too eagerly, as potential buyers came to check the females.
Even though I already knew better, my heart still did that little hopeful flutter.
"What's wrong with this one?" the female seethed at her males from behind the thin walls, "Alive and breathing should be good enough."
'Alive and breathing? That's me...' Whatever requirements she was looking for, I matched them. My shoulders dropped. '..but also every female in those cells.'
"Precious, if we are going to share the same female, then yes, we should all agree on whom we are bringing in. I don't plan to spend the nights watching how you two make out without joining. Do you?" another male answered her, his voice teasingly playful. "Someone we can love too, and someone who will love us in return. Don't you all agree?"
The males all hummed their agreement. The word "precious" sounded so strange coming from a male. I had only heard that word used by a female when referring to her male offspring.
Love? It looked like they required some sort of skill, and I was useless. My shoulders dropped further.
I stood in place obediently until my legs started to ache. I didn't want to dirty the floor by sitting on it. The females had just cleaned the dungeon.
My hopes that these new visitors would buy me were already gone, so the less of a burden I could be to the traders' staff, the better. Less trouble for them meant less trouble for me.
The problem was that I was standing in the middle of the hallway where the traders had left me before rushing to greet the new clients. They had to be very important people for the staff to leave them unattended.
Usually, the traders would never leave any male visitors on their own, especially in the female's cell area. Not because the clients could do anything bad to us, but because we had nothing to offer a male, and they might feel offended by being surrounded by a bunch of worthless females.
It was usually other females who needed extra help in a household or extra hands in the fields who would visit, looking for another pair of hands that wouldn't devalue their own worth.
Ugly but not too ugly, useful but not too useful to replace them. Females like the ones in the cells around me.
And then, there were females like me, the opposite of what everyone wanted. Too eye-catching to blend with the surroundings, too fragile to work long hours, too ugly to even think about selling as pleasure mates.
So why was I here?
I was here to make the rest look more appealing, look better in contrast to me. At least that was what I said to persuade them to shelter me under this roof for a while longer. It was only a matter of time before they'd cast me aside again to fend for myself.
After all, I was just a black sheep, a bad omen. A female not worthy of a name.
╔═══ Author's note ════╗
I'm experimenting with writing an MC opposite of what I usually write. I know many hate pushover, people pleaser, passive type of main characters, but I wanted to explore her mindset and give my little black sheep a chance at life too.❤️
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