Up on the auction stage it’s all glamor and clever lighting, the audience in their finest formalwear and masks, the occasional gasp when two or three of them get into a bidding war over a particularly enticing new slave. The girl in question is pinned down by a spotlight, slowly turned and displayed as the auctioneer murmurs “seventy… eight… one hundred thousand to the gentleman… one ten to the lady in green…”

Down below it’s more utilitarian. These are the house trainers’ last remaining moments with the girls they’ve spent weeks breaking, and there is no particular incentive to treat them kindly, or like anything but chattel. They want you tired and obedient for your new owner. They want you to tremble appealingly as you’re packaged up and trucked away.

These four won’t ever get to see the world upstairs; they’re being sold as part of a bulk lot of five, probably to a competitor’s house that thinks they can be assessed and tracked into specialty training. One girl from the lot is on stage now, representing them; these four will simply be slid farther down along the track when the purchase is made, strapped into their new owner’s transport, and shuttled off to a similar dingy storage area in their new home.

The girl on the left was a promising young tennis player; the one next to her was her coach. The others were a PR intern, a camgirl and an au pair. They would never have had much in common except that the house decided that this was how they’d bring in the most value. Now their fates are temporarily bound together, as they wait, squirming and helpless, to find out if they’ll be given to a relatively gentle life of domestic slavery or–more likely–something considerably crueler.

“One forty,” says the auctioneer. “One forty going once… going twice…”