So there I was. Mostly content, bowling along behind Blackie and just enjoying the agreeable sensation of a beautiful muscular body totally under my control and totally dedicated to my needs. I was running a little late, though, and I ordered the pace up to a fast trot, and needed to “encourage” Blackie just a little to maintain that as we went up Half-Mile Hill on the way to my tea party.
The family met me on the steps of their gracious mansion as we drove up, and I think I scored points when I paused briefly to tell their slaves how Blackie was to be taken care of (slow drinks of water, but as much as he wanted, but no food, and no removal of his harness). Consideration for your slaves was considered to be a sign of a gentlemen in those parts.
It was ghastly. We sat through tiny scones, thin cucumber sandwiches, tiny cups of tea in paper-thin china cups, all followed by slices of a rich home made fruit cake that Marie-Louise’s mother proudly told me Marie-Louise had made herself. As if I cared: that’s why you have kitchen slaves, after all! All the time the parents kept up a barrage of questions about my education, my thoughts on a future career, my views on this and that…. whilst staring almost fixedly at my dick and balls, clearly outlined through the sheer fabric of my tight hose.
When I asked for the men’s room, as I thought that at any moment I might have an erection and that perhaps I should go and seek relief, Marie-Louise’s father accompanied me. You can only pee in these ridiculous hose by rolling them right down as there’s no fly, and he stood there staring in admiration at my butt, as the duty slave then helped me pull them back up again. “Look, son”, he said, putting an arm around my shoulder and letting his palm rest on my tit, stretching awkwardly through the thin silk of my dress shirt, “…I think I can call you that. My wife and I have been very pleased with what we’ve heard – and seen (he grinned at me conspiratorially) – of you today. I will speak to your uncle this evening, and provided we can agree on the financial terms, you and Marie-Louise can wed. We’re looking for the traditional ‘heir and a spare’ – two sons for you both – and then you can both do as you please, provided there’s no scandal.”
I was struck dumb! As if it wasn’t bad enough having he and his wife staring at my dick during tea, had he really needed to take a closer look at my butt, and finger my tit, before selecting me as a sire for his grandchildren? And now he was going to talk “terms” with my uncle – was I some sort of fucking slave, did he think? It was as much as I could do to remain silent, except for mumbling “Thank you, sir”, whilst making a mental note that this had got to be stopped.
I let Blackie jog home at his own pace, so I could do some serious thinking. As we neared the house, I heard shouting and tugged on the reins lightly so that Blackie halted. There was a gang of our slaves at work picking the peach harvest in the adjacent field – it’s one of our specialities, as we do premium fruit only for the connoisseur’s market, and proudly claim that it’s totally untouched by machines. Of course this means a lot of manual labour, and without slaves it just wouldn’t be viable at all, but we do pretty well out of it and it’s an important source of profit for the estate.
Straughan was there in front of some of the picking crew, and seemed to be almost apoplectic with rage. “I distinctly saw you”, he was screaming at four of the slaves clustered around one tree. “Eating your owner’s fruit is theft: you’re stealing from him! He feeds you properly on slave chow, and enough of it, too, not like some places where slaves are half- starved, and you abuse him by stealing extra food from him, food that you don’t need, and which affects his profits!”
“Please, sir”, one of the four interjected when Straughan stopped his rant for a moment. “I’m sorry, sir. But it was only one, sir, with a weevil in it, and it wasn’t any use as part of the crop….”
“Theft is theft, slave, and it’s not up to you to judge ‘usefulness’. If everyone claimed to be eating weevilly fruit, we could never tell who was lying and eating the most choice. Four strokes of the bull whip tonight.”
The slave started to sob, and I shuddered inwardly. That was such a harsh punishment – the sheer weight of the bullwhip and the speed it moves at knocks the slave sideways as the whip master applies it, and the flesh is of course invariably deeply lacerated and the slave is scarred for life. But of course I could not interfere – Straughan ran a tight ship, and I assumed he knew what he was doing. Turning to the other three he said “And you three… Did you eat the fruit too, weevils or not?”
One of them, I guessed some sort of quasi-leader, looked Straughan defiantly in the eye and said “No, sir.” Straughan strode over to the kneeling slave, whipped off his belt from his jodhpurs and pulled it tight around the slave’s neck. He straddled the slave’s shoulders, then used the open end of the belt to haul the slave’s head tight up into his crotch. I could see the slave almost starting to choke as Straughan tightened his grip, then, as the slave started to gasp for air, Straughan thrust the butt end of the light whip he always carried deep into the slave’s mouth and throat. The slave’s belly and chest heaved as the butt triggered his gag reflex, and quick as a flash Straughan withdrew it so that the slave could vomit, spewing the contents of his gullet onto the ground in front of him. As the slave knelt there, rubbing his bruised neck and trying to recover from his ordeal, Straughan repeated the process on the other two slaves. Then, walking up and down in front of them and toeing the heaps of vomit with his immaculately polished boot, he said “Liars, all of you. And there’s the proof – pieces of your owner’s fruit in front of you. Eight lashes for each of you tonight, four for theft, and four for daring to lie to me!”
The slaves look thunderstruck at the awful fate awaiting them, but Straughan was not finished with them. “Now, to avoid a doubling of that punishment, I want to see no more waste. The slave chow your master so generously allowed you to feed on this morning is lying there, and you’re not being properly nourished. Pick up that mess in front of you and ingest it down!”
The slaves looked for an instant as if they might disobey, but bent over, and with much gagging and choking, began to eat up their own vomit. It cannot have been at all pleasant, as in addition to the vile nature of the stuff itself, it was by now mixed with the dust and loose twigs on the ground of the peach orchard. Straughan saw me watching, and came over. “You can’t be too careful with slaves, Mister Jon. I know you think you’ve trained that pony of yours, but working slaves need watching all the time if discipline is to be maintained.”
“Maybe so, Mister Jon. They’ll never look a pretty sight again, but then, they’re only field slaves. And one of them might not survive at all. But that’s a small price to pay for discipline in your uncle’s entire herd – I can guarantee there will be no more theft of fruit as soon as the word of this spreads…”
He was right, of course, and there was no point in arguing, or even asking for clemency for the slaves – after all, once a master has spoken, he has to follow through, doesn’t he, or else the slaves will lose all respect for him?
As I bathed before dinner that night with Sam washing my hair, I wondered what I was going to say to my uncle about that afternoon. Dinner was always a rather formal affair and so I had to wear a jacket and tie, and my uncle did not like to talk “business” as the slaves served us our meal. I could tell that my uncle was excited, though, and when we were settled in the study afterwards and the slave had poured our brandies, he leaned forward to me and said “Thank you, Jon, I’m proud of you…”
“Uncle?”
“I’ve had a long conversation with Marie-Louise’s father and have negotiated a most satisfactory settlement for your marriage. We’ll contract you for two sons, and then they’ll make the full payment…”
“Uncle Jed, it makes me sound like a slave stud…. ”
“Oh don’t be ridiculous, Jon. It’s just a marriage contract – you marry, you sire two sons, then you can start playing again…. ”
“No, uncle, I won’t do it. I’ve been thinking hard, and I don’t believe I’ll ever be happy here, running this place… I’m going to go back North, and make my own way….”
Well, that did it! The argument raged. He called me ungrateful, for having spurned all his care since my parents’ death. He told me I was stupid, in that with the wealth of the plantation and Marie- Louise’s money, I’d have more money than I could make even as a lawyer. But when he asked me why I couldn’t run the place, and I told him I didn’t agree with whipping slaves to death as Straughan might well have done that night, he became apoplectic and said that it was my parents’ woolly liberalism coming out. I stormed out, telling him that I was leaving in the morning, and that was final.
Once I’d said it, it seemed easy, as so many major decisions are: you worry about making them, but once you’ve set on some course of action, things seem to fall into place. I decided not to start looking for a job immediately, but to go “on the road” and see a bit of our great country as I’d never really travelled. I might look up some of my frat brothers who lived on the west coast, I thought, or spend the winter as a ski bum in the Rockies… The possibilities seemed endless. I didn’t have much actual money, though, so it was not going to be jet planes and fine hotels, more hitching a ride and cheap motels, and so I told Sam only to pack a few easy-to-wash things in a backpack for me.
The next morning my uncle met me for breakfast, but neither of us were in a mood for compromise, and I wished him a cordial farewell. It’s hard to leave home at the best of times, but under these circumstances of family strife, it’s awful. At the last moment I turned to my uncle and said “Look, I have to find my own way. If I come back in six months time, perhaps things will look different. Would I be welcome then?”
“This will always be your home, Jon, but you know that I must be obeyed in this….”
Before we said any more things that might make us totally irreconcilable, I shook his hands, and went to leave. To my astonishment, there was Blackie in my rickshaw, and my uncle said that I could take him to the Interstate as it would take me a long time to walk there to get my first lift. I was pleased at this gesture on my uncle’s part, but, strictly speaking, I suppose Blackie was actually mine and I really should have driven him to the nearest dealer and cashed him in – my journey of discovery would then be properly funded!
Blackie’s good for about nine or ten miles at a steady trot, and that’s the normal limits of our social engagements, but the Interstate’s fifteen miles from the house, so half way there I pulled him up off the road in a small wood, to give him time to rest. He was sweating profusely, to the extent that there was almost a fine mist of it coming off him and blowing back on to me as we bowled along , and as there was a small pond in the wood, I told Blackie he could cool off if he wanted to. Watching him frolicking around in the cool water looked so tempting, and so I stripped off and joined him – as I said, being naked with slaves is not a particular problem for me as I’m kind of used to it, but it was interesting to see the contrast between Blackie’s really hard muscularity and my good, fit, but not hardworking body.
We lay side by side on the grass drying in the sun, just like two buddies might, and it was with a heavy heart that I fastened his bridle back afterwards and tightened the strap to force him to keep his head properly upright as he ran: I’d found this slave, trained him myself, and now I was going to have to give him up. At the Interstate I patted his rump affectionately in farewell and told him to take his time getting back as he should not exhaust himself as there would be no more work for him that day, I felt certain, then stood there, hitching a lift.
Well, it’s hard, if you’re not used to it – making conversation with truckers, staying in cheap motels which are barely clean, eating in hamburger joints and downmarket diners, and then having to clean your own clothes and wash yourself – I didn’t want to spend the money on slave service, even at the cheapest rates in the vilest motels: the general rise in slave prices was having an effect even here, and made it seem very expensive for what I suspected you’d get from the old, broken-down slaves they probably used. Still, it was kind of interesting to see a side of life I’d not experienced before, and on the whole I was enjoying it.
I was deep in Kentucky and the rides seemed to have almost totally dried up, when a pickup with a couple of guys in it stopped. I didn’t care where they were going, actually, as anywhere was better than staying on the lonely stretch of road where I was. They seemed friendly enough, and as we chatted away I told them about my “journey”, how I’d been on the road for a month now, and how the earliest I was even expected back was in five more months. We stopped at a diner for coffee, and they were on the phone almost constantly. Afterwards, as we were moving along again, they turned off the main highway and went along successively smaller roads, telling me that they’d heard there was a big hold-up ahead, and that this was a rat- run around it.
We stopped in some deep woods “for a piss”, they said, and then I heard a click: one of them was pointing a gun at me, cocked. “OK, boy, strip off!”, he said.
“Look, I haven’t got anything you want. Just under a hundred in cash, that’s all…”
“Boy, I said to strip off – you have got something we want, something we want very much…”
“No, honest, I was just hitching… I fell out with my family… I….”
I fell to the ground, as the second guy had come up behind me and simply hit me with a big piece of dried branch he must have found on the floor. They both then set about pulling off my walking boots and jeans as I lay there struggling to come around properly, then roughly jerked me to my feet, pulled off my hiking jacket and shirt, so I stood there in my boxers.
“My, isn’t that a pretty sight?”, one said to the other. “Makes you feel really horny just looking at him, doesn’t it? Shall we….?”
“No, best not! We told them we thought he was a virgin, and if we take him in running with spunk, they’ll give us a lower price….”
Turning to me he said “Come on, boy… Up into the back”, and, still groggy, I was “helped” up into the back of the pickup where there was a large animal cage. They pushed me in, and locked the gate, then laughing at their success, they rifled through my belongings, took my wallet, and threw the rest deep into the woods.
We drove for what seemed like hours along county roads, highways, a stretch of Interstate… I tried signalling, waving and shouting at the truckers who passed us and who could see me, half naked, in the cage on the open back of the truck, but no one was interested – I suppose seeing two guys transporting a slave is not uncommon, and there was no way of telling that I was a free man.
It was late afternoon when we pulled into some really small hick town in the middle of nowhere, the kind of place that has seen all its industries close down and all the stores move off to the shopping mall a few miles away. We pulled up at the rear of a semi- derelict industrial building, and the driver went and rang a bell, which caused a metal shutter to start to roll up with a lot of squeaking and noise, to let us drive in, whereupon it closed again. The men got out of the pickup and disappeared through a door, and I was left there in the half darkness, wondering what the fuck was going to happen to me – they’d already robbed me, surely they weren’t going to kill me now?
The two men came back with two others, big strong-looking men in tight Jeans, neat work shirts, and tough-looking work boots. The four of them clustered around the cage, opened it, and almost hauled me out. Before I could do or say anything, one of the tough guys had grabbed my arms and twisted them up behind my back, a collar was snapped around my neck, and I felt my wrists being jostled up to be cuffed to the back of the collar.
“There”, one of the toughs said. “Now he’s safe. He can’t get out of here without hands, and so we thank you gentlemen, and we’ll let you out….”
All four men shook hands, my two captors got into their pickup, the shutter opened and they drove out. I tried to make a break for it, to run across the gap and throw myself through the opening in a desperate attempt to escape, but one of those big work boots reached out casually and tripped me, so I went flying down onto the hard concrete floor – very painful, without arms to break my fall. Both guys stood over me as I lay there gasping, and they were chuckling to each other. “They always try that, don’t they? Don’t know what they’d hope to achieve even if they did get out – this town is solidly behind the slavery laws, and anyone finding them would soon send them back to us….”
“Look, I’m not a slave”, I shouted. “I’m a free man, just like you. Those two goons robbed me, stripped me, and abducted me… Just let me got to the police or sheriff, and this will soon get sorted out…”
The men just laughed, picked me up onto my feet, and half dragged, half carried me through into the building, where we went along a number of dark corridors, and into a brightly lit room that was, shall we say, functional rather than comfortable. Behind a large desk sat a third man, strong looking, and about my uncle’s age, and perhaps equally distinguished looking. “Well, excellent!”, he said to the other two. “Those two rednecks usually turn up with something special, so it’s worth paying them what they ask for – if they knew the profit margin I work to, they’d be horrified at how little they get for being at the start of the chain!”
“Look, stop this, and stop this now!”, I almost screamed at him. “I’m a free man, and if you let me go now, I swear I won’t tell anyone…. Let’s just go to the Sheriff, and you can establish who I am…”
He smiled at me. “You’re a slave. We don’t know who yet, but we soon will.”
“No, I’m free… You can check…”
“You’re a slave. I don’t care what you were earlier today, now you’re a slave. And in my presence I like slaves to be naked, so I think we can dispense with those boxers….” He nodded to one of the two strong men, who went behind me and simply pulled my boxers down, then stooped to catch them from around my feet and casually dropped them into a waste bin.
I’ve told you I don’t mind being naked in front of slaves, but this was totally different – now I was naked, and helpless with my hands cuffed, in front of three clothed guys. I hated it.
“There!”, the chief said. “A slave. Properly naked. Of course you don’t fully look like a slave – yet!”.
As he spoke, he got up and came and stood beside me. He ruffled my hair, and went on “An expensive haircut, I suspect. But once you’re shorn down to a regular slave trim, you’ll look more authentic.”
His hands roamed down over my chest and belly, and his fingers twined around in my pubes. I tried to move away from him, but his other hand was behind me, pushing at my butt. It wasn’t enough to stop me moving, as I’m a pretty strong guy, but somehow the presence of the hand was sufficient. “And once a lot of this is removed, we’ll be able to see that handsome dick of yours much better, and, of course, most owners keep their slaves’ pubes neatly trimmed.”
I thought of how I insisted that Blackie kept himself neat, how the pool boy Jason and the other house slaves had to shave themselves down there every week, and knew that he was telling the truth.
“No – I just like lying in the sun, but….”
“Please… I don’t understand….”
“You don’t need to. But I’ll tell you anyway – we process slaves here, turn out nice shiny new slaves for the auction market. There’s a huge demand for new slaves at the moment, and the more we can push through here, the more money I make…”
“But I’m not a slave, I keep telling you…”
The man struck me a stinging blow across the left side of my face, full force with his open hand. I staggered sideways, and through the ringing in my ears heard him say “And I keep telling you to remain silent unless spoken to. Now understand this – you’re worth a lot of money to me, as a slave. A good-looking, young, toned slave. As a free man you’re worth precisely nothing, so my obvious course of action is to turn you into a slave. Simple, isn’t it?”
“But only the courts can order enslavement…”
Another stinging blow, to my right side. It hurt, believe me. He continued calmly “Courts order enslavement, but people take as they find. If you look like a slave, you’ll be a slave. When we’ve finished with you here you’ll look like any other slave, and behave like one; so as you look like one, especially as we’ll auction you through a reputable auction house, buyers will consider you to be one. And even if someone subsequently has some doubts, they’ll have paid so much for you that they’ll stifle them.”
“Of course”, he went on, “We provide some paperwork, too… Now, let me see….”
He went over to a filing cabinet and riffled through it, returning some minutes later with one of the standard slave dossiers with which most of us are familiar – you know the sort of thing: copy of the enslavement order, full front, full back and full side photos of the nude slave, head shot, dick shot, and a sheet of vital statistics like height, weight, eye colour. I’d seen hundreds of them in my uncle’s study for the estate slaves, and worked my way through scores when I was at various dealers, searching for my pony.
“Look”, he said opening it and holding it in front of me. “Steve Masters. Enslaved for life at the age of twenty three for gross impropriety… Let me read it out to you…. Found in bed with a mother and her fifteen year old daughter, with both mother and daughter pregnant by the slave.. Six foot two, two thirty pounds, dark blue eyes, blond hair… Need I go on?…. Sounds just like you. And he looks a lot like you – or how you will be when we’ve finished with you. So we will be able to give your buyers a proper dossier….”
“But the real Steve Masters…” “Oh, the mother and daughter both petitioned the court saying they didn’t want their kids to be fathered by a slave, so he was let off… And it says here that the last that was heard was that all five are living happily together. So his slave file is officially closed, as he’s a free man again – except that a small present to the court clerk actually kept it open, so there’s even a properly registered slave identification number….. So welcome to slavedom, Steve.”
“You can’t do this… And I’m Jon….”
“No. You’re Steve now, slave. That’s your slave name.”
“Anyway, we may as well begin your journey into slavedom. The sooner we start, the sooner we finish. Up on the horse, please.”
He indicated one of the standard flogging horses, standing in the corner. We had one in my Uncle’s study – an antique one, of course, but the same basic design: four sturdy legs, a platform for the slave to lie on, places to fasten him down, and the all-important height adjustment mechanism for positioning the slave properly. I went to refuse, but a naked, cuffed guy is no match for two big strong free ones, and the two Jeans-clad men almost picked me up and half carried me over to the horse.
“NO! You fuckers can’t do this to me…”, I screamed. “Let me go….”
But it was no use. They threw me face down onto the leather pad, my legs dangling over the end, and pulled Velcro bindings around under my shoulders and around my waist, so my body was held there rigid. A couple of further bindings held my ankles to the horse’s legs, and I was done. I felt the warm hand of one of the guys stroking my butt, and he commented “Nice butt here, sir…. Are we allowed to fuck it?”
As he spoke, I could feel his hand moving downward, to reach for my balls between my spread legs. “Leave him alone, Wayne! Time for that later, as we need to move on… But no, you’re not allowed to fuck him – he’s probably a virgin, or, at least, we can sell him as one anyway, and a lot of owners pay a premium for being able to take a slave’s cherry!”
Whew! That was a relief. At least I wasn’t going to be fucked immediately. As I’ve told you, I don’t fuck male slaves, but a lot of guys do and there’s no particular shame attached to it – I mean, you’re just using your property, aren’t you? I know a lot of slaves are bought for sex, and I suppose it dawned on me now that this might be my fate – to be the fuck toy of some vile old man.
“Now, Steve”, the head man was saying, “You were very rude a few moments ago. It’s not acceptable for a slave to shout out, and to use epithets to free men. So I’m going to punish you – only two strokes with the cane, as this is your first time. Are you familiar with caning?”
Of course I was! Many’s the evening I’ve sat in my Uncle’s study and watched as he’s had to paddle one or more of the serving slaves for some infraction of his strict rules of behaviour. And for particularly serious cases – spilled wine, for example – he had to strap the slave onto the antique punishment horse and cane him. And now here I was, as helpless as those slaves had been, and probably feeling as much trepidation as they did at the though of the punishment.
I heard the swish of the cane through the air just the moment before the pain hit me – all consuming, terrible harsh pain that might have started in my butt but which spread its throbbing agony through my whole body. Then another. I just couldn’t help screaming, but I quickly managed to stifle it into suppressed sobbing as I didn’t want these men to know I was afraid of them.
“Now, Steve, that’s what we do here. If you break the rules, you get caned. And that was only me caning you – if Wayne or Juilan here wield the cane, you’ll be simply amazed at how strong they are and how much more it will hurt. Simple cause and effect: Steve breaks the rules, Steve gets caned. Simple, isn’t it?”
I just lay there, and he went on “You must have been around slaves, and so I hardly need to tell you that a slave always replies respectfully to his master. So when I ask you a question, you reply. Do you understand?”
Of course I did! Uncle Jed always insisted that the house slaves were the very model of politeness, and they’d certainly be punished for failing like that. So I said “Yes.”
The swish again, and a new shriek from me.
“Now Steve, that’s what I meant… Steve doesn’t obey the rules, Steve gets punished. The proper reply to your master’s question is ‘Yes, master. Now do you understand?”
“Yes, master”, I got out, through gritted teeth. It was odious to have to call him “master”, but what else could I do? Tied down on the punishment horse, I was totally in his power.
“Good, Steve. You’ve started well. Now I’m going to get Julian and Wayne to take you to the holding area and lock you safely in a cage overnight as we need to do a little more work before we can really start on you, and I suspect that anyway you are tired after this rapid change in your life prospects!”
And that was it – the two men grabbed me again and pulled me out, down a corridor, and through a door into a bleak dark space, empty except for six cages along one wall, four of which held naked guys, one black, three white. They casually opened the fifth cage, then undid my collar and released my hands, and almost threw me into it.
I had to crouch there – I couldn’t stand, and could barely lie down. “Slaves maintain silence at all times in the holding area”, Wayne said, and the two men went out. I looked at the slave next to me, a guy about my own age, and said “What the fuck’s going on here?”
He looked terrified, and made “Shushing” gestures with his finger on his lips, but I said again “Come on, they’ve gone… What’s going on…?”
All five of us jerked up and down and screamed, as a shock raced through the bars of our cages, and a voice from a loudspeaker said “Slaves will remain silent at all times in the holding area, or the sound sensors will trigger punishment.”
My neighbour was making imploring gestures, so I kept my mouth shut form then on and tried to get comfortable – but if you’ve ever looked closely at one of your slaves’ cages you’ll know it isn’t easy – I couldn’t properly stand, lie or sit, and my body was always pressed against the floor, walls and lid. The bars were a few inches apart, and dug into my skin. And it was cold in the room – well, I suppose not cold exactly, but cold if you’re naked and immobile. There was another problem, too – I needed to piss. I hadn’t done so for hours. I gestured to my neighbour, holding my dick and miming my need, and he just pointed at the floor ,and shrugged his shoulders at my look of surprise. Then he casually pointed his dick down through the bars, and just let go, his piss streaming along the concrete floor to disappear into a channel at the back. So I did the same – and felt better, I suppose. But how the hell was I going to crap, as I felt the need for that start to stir my bowels?
I got my answer the next “morning”- I had to assume it was morning, as I woke up, stiff and aching – and saw my neighbour crouching low in his cage, and then releasing a turd that neatly dropped through the bars. I suppose I’d registered that the cages were raised up on short stubby legs, and perhaps this was to allow that to happen. I couldn’t hold myself much longer, so did the same; and then I crouched there, smelling the fetid smell of my turds as they lay there on the concrete under me. Fortunately this must be what happened in the “morning” as a guy in rubber boots and a work overall came in through the door, turned the lights on, shouted “Good morning, guys”, then turned on a hose and proceeded to sluice away all the piss and crap from under our cages.
Then he turned the hose on us in turn – I almost screamed when the icy cold water hit me, but I’d seen that the others used the opportunity to clean themselves from their shitting, and so I turned my ass to face the icy blast hit me and scrabbled around with my hands as best I could. As we sat here shivering he came back and placed stainless steel bowls outside each cage, then went along again, filling them with slave chow from a sack. He fiddled around with each door in turn, and opened up a circular “hatch”, through which my companions stuck their heads and stated to try to suck up the chow.
I’ve tried it, of course – what free man hasn’t been tempted just to try a mouthful of the stuff that almost universally slaves are fed on? It’s a very good food, as we all know – balanced, full of vitamins and minerals, unlikely to make the slave fat, and very cheap, as it’s manufactured from petroleum residues and general garden waste. But it’s so bland, and it’s like eating very chewy cardboard – the manufacturers say that the texture encourages healthy jaws and gums, and that there’s no residue to stick between the teeth, so eliminating the need for brushing! But that morning I didn’t want any – I don’t eat slave chow, as I’m a free man, and I wasn’t going to start now.
“Bad doggy, not eating his breakfast”, the janitor crooned as he cleaned away my still-full dish. The master wont like that….”
I lay there, my body aching and my stomach rumbling as I was hungry, as one by one the two big guys came and took the men out of the cages and away into the bowels of the building. Then it was my turn, and as they pulled me out, before I could even struggle as I was trying to loosen my cramped limbs, they put one of the restraint collars on me and fastened my wrists behind my neck again. Then we were off again, down the corridors, and back into the chief honcho’s space I’d been in the day before.
“Ah, Steve”, he said when I entered. “Our little lesson in obedience and manners yesterday doesn’t seem to have worked – you didn’t eat your breakfast this morning.”
“I don’t eat slave chow!”, I muttered sullenly, then, seeing his hand reaching for the cane, I added “…master.”
“Good boy, Steve! Perhaps the lessons do work, as you seem to have remembered something of the ‘respect’ a slave needs. But you’re wrong about the slave chow – you do eat it, as it’s all that slaves get fed. It’s healthy, and good for you. And you have to remember that you need to keep your strength up, as you need to be able to fulfil your owner’s purpose for you. Refusing food just isn’t on, Steve. We’re kind of used to it here, though, for stubborn new slaves like you, and we have a little lesson…. Wayne, get him in position, Julian, fetch the feeder….”
One of the two big guys simply put his leg behind mine and kind of pushed, so I was sprawling at his feet. He pulled out his belt from his Jeans, looped it around my neck, and then, just as I’d seen Straughan do to the slaves who stole the peaches, he tightened it, and pulled my head down into his crotch whilst straddling my shoulders and body with his powerful legs. I couldn’t fight back or anything as my wrists were cuffed, and I half sat, half lay there between his legs, half choking from the pressure of his belt holding me tight to him.
The other guy now stood in front of me, holding a square box in bright blue plastic with a handle on the side, and a thick tube leading from its bottom. “Right, slave, open your mouth!”, he snapped, and when I didn’t comply, he reached forward and pinched my nose closed, then dug his thumb and forefinger into the sides of my jaw and started to push.
I had to open my mouth to breathe, of course, and the moment it was open just a fraction, the pressure of his fingers forced it wider. The thick blue tube was pushed between my lips, then, as I began to desperately wriggle and struggle and choke as my gag reflexes were triggered, it was forced on into my throat. I was so intent on trying to breathe, trying to stop the awful retching gagging in my stomach and throat, that I hardly noticed as he started to turn the handle on the side of the blue box and the tube started to pulse with life.
Five minutes, five minutes it went on, but it seemed like a lifetime. Then the tube was pulled out, and the pressure on the belt around my neck eased. I collapsed onto the floor, wheezing and spluttering, trying to get myself under control.
“That’s a feeder, Steve.”, the chief honcho told me in matter of fact tones. “When a slave refuses food here, we need to feed him to keep him properly fit – it’s in his best interests, after all. Do you like it? Cute, isn’t it, in that nice cheerful blue colour? We saw it on a trip to France, where they use it to force-feed geese for foie gras, and it adapts quite well to feeding slaves, I think. Now, if I were you, though, I think I’d try to avoid being ‘stuffed ‘ by the feeder in future, and eat up my portions of slave chow when they’re presented. Another of those little lessons, I believe… So you understand?”
“Yes, Master.”
“Good. Well, I’m afraid this isn’t going to be a good morning for you, though. Please go and ride the horse, face down….” I saw the men move towards me threateningly, and knew I had no choice. I went over to the horse, lay down again, and simply waited as the straps were fastened around me, holding me down. If this was another fucking caning, I supposed I could bear it.
“Now, Steve”, the chief went on, “You know that you’re a ‘lifer’, don’t you? And what do all ‘lifers’ have?”
“No hope, master.”, I said, grimly.
“Very good, Steve. But beware – not all owners are tolerant of slaves trying to be funny. No, Steve, all ‘lifers’ have the ‘S’ brand, to show that their owners have the power to modify their bodies if they wish. So if you’re to be turned into Steve, you have to be branded, don’t you?”
“No, please, master, don’t….”
“Oh, Steve! And I thought you were supposed to be an intelligent guy with a fancy education! If you didn’t have the brand, no one would believe that you were a ‘lifer’. And if you’re not a ‘lifer’, you couldn’t be Steve Masters, could you? And that might lead to all sorts of questioning…..”
“Now, this is going to hurt”, he said unnecessarily. “I can’t give you a pain killer as the American Society For The Protection Of Cruelty To Slaves got the new law last year that said that anaesthetics could only be administered by qualified veterinarians – the wanted to stamp out unauthorised operations, I suppose, but all that it’s really done, with their meddling in slave management, is that a lot of slaves like you now get a lot of things done to them entirely without anything to dull the pain. I think it’s called the law of unintended consequences, or something…. Now, hold still….”
Nothing can prepare you for the pain from an electric brander pressed into you and then held there as it seers its way through the outer layers of your skin. I know I screamed, I know I tried, without avail, to tear myself free of the bindings holding me down. And as I lost consciousness, I could smell the smoke from my seared and charred flesh, and I was reminded of those happy barbecues at the plantation, which now seemed to be so very far away.
To be continued …
