Changed Circumstances Chapter 54 "Schooldays Re-visited"
This is a story of erotic fiction meant for adult readers over the age of eighteen years.
Written by Jean-Christophe (Chris): October, 2012 Read my stories at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Jean-Christophe_Stories
"The characters and ideas in this story are purely fictitious and belong to the writer. They shouldn't be used without his permission. Please respect the integrity of the story and don't do any rewrites, make alterations or add pictures"
Chapter 54: "Schooldays Re-visited"
For a slave time moves with inexorable slowness. Each day passes exactly as the one preceding it and today sets the pattern for tomorrow. At least that's how it seems to me and once, when I'd mentioned this to Norge, he gave that exasperated sigh he always reserves for me when I try his patience. He told me that this is a slave's lot and thinking about it won't make the time go any faster. In fact, he told me bluntly.
"Rafe, get used to it! I had to and now you must too."
In my own defence, I have to say that the sameness of my life as a slave palls on me. But I suppose this is the same for any free man who unexpectedly finds himself a slave. The loss of freedom is shattering and soul-destroying and there are huge emotional hurdles that the new slave must also overcome. During the first six months of my slavery, these seemed insurmountable as I struggled with my new life. At first, I felt I'd not survive - indeed, in those early days, I saw death as a blessed release from my new "hell on earth".
The loss of my freedom, of all my worldly possessions and even my name were issues I found I couldn't handle. And added to these were the rejection by my closest friends and business acquaintances and the almost universal revulsion of the wider community who now despised me. These were major issues for me to deal with and they were just too weighty for my shoulders to bear alone. Perhaps this was a reflection of my youth and immaturity - I don't know.
Every day, the courts are sentencing more and more unfortunates to lifelong enslavement for the most trivial of offences. The recently re-elected Governor- encouraged by the public response to his draconian "Barrois Amendments" to the Slave Act - put before the Legislature a whole draft of new offences many of which are simple misdemeanours rather than serious crimes. And it has to be said the politicians, with an eye to their re-election prospects, willingly acquiesced to his strident demands.
The public's demand for slaves is insatiable and grows unabated by the day. The demand for new slaves means that there are now many more "candidates for enslavement" appearing before the courts and this has given rise to a new entrepreneurial class of slave-traders. Mostly, these are inexperienced people motivated by the "quick buck" syndrome and with little or no interest in the human flesh they peddle. One can find these small, shonky slave-dealers on small, suburban, corner allotments or in shopfront businesses in the shopping malls.
Perhaps it's the more respectable, well- established slave traders who have benefited the most from this growing demand for more slaves. Just recently, I overheard Master talking about the odious dealer, Lionel Schuster and the fact that he has expanded and modernized his establishment to meet this growing market.
What I do know is that in my self-absorption, I handled my enslavement badly! My experiences aren't unique to me and are repeated with sickening regularity every day of the week. However, unlike most other new slaves I was fortunate. In the moments of my darkest despair, Norge stepped forward to help me.
For that I am eternally grateful to Norge and now count myself fortunate to have him as a brother slave, a stable-mate and a true friend. But most of all we are lovers.
It is now almost six months since I returned from La Foret and our days are boring in the extreme because they never vary. Early each morning, we are harnessed to Master's cart and tethered to a hitching-rail in the courtyard ready for when he needs to drive us. This routine never changes.
Initially, our first trip of the day was to take our young Master Etienne on the short trip to his school. Master Etienne had been trained to drive us and he did so with enthusiasm and dash. Over time his control of us showed his growing confidence at driving a "pair in hand" and he had perfected his use of the driver's whip which he used on us with great skill and finesse.
The driver's whip is an essential part of any pony's day. It is the driver's tongue - the silent means of communication between him and his pony - and with it he speaks to the pony and tells him of his wishes.
Master uses his whip on us but does so with restraint. Often it is just a quick flick to our shoulders or our asses to refocus our attention when our minds wander; something that happens a lot. The sheer monotony of running before a cart denies a pony any mental stimulation. All his attention is focused on pulling the cart behind him and the pounding of his feet and the scrunching of the cart's wheels on the road's surface have a hypnotic effect that lulls him into a trance-like stupor.
A pony - as with all slaves - is forbidden to read and so there is no mental stimulation for him in contemplating the news of the day or the affairs of the world. The only thoughts that a pony has are those concerned with his well -being; thinking ahead to his next meal to relieve his hunger pangs, or his next water intake or when he'll be allowed to attend to the calls of nature.
From a personal perspective, I no longer dwell on my past life although at first, I suppose many ponies do think of their previous lives. For me to do so, would only awaken painful memories which would add to my distress and serve no useful purpose.
So, as I run alongside of Norge, my mind is essentially blank and any thoughts I do have are centred on him and our nocturnal love-making. These fill my days with appreciative memories of the previous night and eager anticipation of the one ahead of us.
As I said Master does use his whip with restraint - although he can subject us to firmer discipline if he thinks we aren't fully applying ourselves to our task. But Norge and I seldom disappoint our Master in the performance of our duties and he occasionally rewards us with little titbits like a lump of sugar or a small portion of apple in appreciation of our efforts.
However, Master Etienne's attitude to us is very different to his father's. In recent times he has grown in both confidence and arrogance. After years of poverty, sudden unlimited wealth is spoiling Etienne and this is reflected in his attitude to his father's slaves.
I know from whispered talk among the stable-slaves that the fearful house-slaves live in dread of upsetting their young Master. The caning table, once stored in the stables and only taken out into the courtyard when required, has found a permanent position at the centre of the yard where it serves as a constant reminder to the slaves not to displease Master Etienne. Summary punishments have now become "de rigueur" and a wretched slave can find himself strapped to the bench with his ass positioned for the cane at the slightest provocation. Indeed, Norge and I have been witnesses to these on many occasions as we stood tethered waiting for our Master.
At first, these canings consisted of only five or six strokes and they were administered by a stable slave. More recently, Master Etienne has taken to personally administering these canings and they have grown in frequency while, at the same time, the number and severity of the strokes has increased.
Master Etienne, despite his youth, is now a young Master to be truly feared!
Initially, the first chore of our day was to take Master Etienne to school. He was always accompanied by a groom from the stables whose task it was to drive us but, from the outset, Master Etienne took hold of the reins with the groom sitting in the passenger's seat. Always, after delivering Master Etienne to school, the slave drove Norge and I back home and left us tethered and ready for Master's use.
Norge and I came to dread being driven by Master Etienne. Right from the outset, he applied the whip to us and drove us at sweat-inducing, almost neck-break speed. Quite obviously, he wanted to impress his school friends and we provided him with the means to do so.
Norge and I have gained an enviable reputation as a "noble pair" of ponies and we draw admiring glances and high praise from all quarters. Wherever, Master drives us, inevitably we are surrounded by a group of admirers complimenting him on his ownership of us and, with his approval; we are subjected to intimate, hands-on inspections.
Once I would have resented these inspections as I thought back to the very first day of my slavery when Norge and I had been publicly humiliated by Major Swanston in front of my former neighbours. But my time spent at La Forˆt had inured me to my nakedness and I now passively submit to any examinations that Master permits.
Because I own nothing - even my body is my Master's - the only source of personal pride open to me is in my appearance. And I am very aware that I have an imposing physique, handsome features and I have heard it said that I "present well". It is also said by some that I have a noble bearing which they attribute to my Barrois sire.
If I'm honest, I have to admit to a sense of pride and satisfaction as admiring hands glide over my nude body gauging the density and strength of my muscles and the soundness and health of my heart and lungs. Like Norge, I stand docilely as my legs are lifted and the soles of my feet inspected. Nor do I pull back as my balls are hefted and weighed in an eager, cupped hand or as my cock is stroked to rampant erection.
But there are some aspects of these inspections that I have never really adjusted to. I resent having my ass cheeks spread wide to expose my anus to the public scrutiny of my admirer. And I hate the insertion of a finger into my rectum as a test of my "tightness". But the thing I dislike the most is the inevitable, final part of all these inspections - a close inspection of my head. I really hate it as my head to tilted from side to side while my ears are peered into or as my head is pushed back for a nasal inspection. And I truly hate that imperious tap to the side of my jaw and the demeaning order to "open wide" as the health of my tongue and the soundness of my teeth are checked.
A few times my resentment has gotten the better of me and I have been known to baulk at these final indignities. Always my intransigence has earned me a slap to the face or the ass and the sharp rebuke from Master to.
"Stand still, damn you, Rafe! Stand still or you'll feel my whip on your ass".
Master Etienne has been enrolled in my old school. It is the most prestigious, private school for boys in the city. Back in my school-days, it was a bastion of privilege where only the sons of the aristocratic and old money families could afford to attend. Its high attendance fees gave it an air of "exclusiveness" that precluded the "riff-raff" from among its enrolments.
However, in these recent, "more democratic" times, it has been opened up to the sons of the ever expanding, noveau riche, entrepreneurial classes who see an education here as an essential stepping-stone into high society. I understand that by the sheer weight of their numbers, these newly rich merchants have replaced the old system of stately school governors with a new board of management made up of members from among their numbers who prattle on incessantly about the need for "good business practices".
At the same time their aspiring wives noisily busy themselves with cocktail parties, black tie dinners and other crass events that are completely out of keeping with the school's fine old traditions which have stood the test of time over the past century and a half.
And in many ways, my Master and his son, Etienne epitomise this new school culture. It's true that my distant cousin Guy possesses the blood of our common de Barrois ancestor. But his grandmother's exclusion from the family saw him grow up impoverished and largely uneducated. And that continued with his son. Obviously, it's too late for Guy to be educated but not for his son, Etienne. Guy is determined that his son will have all the advantages denied to him and he'll spare no expense in turning Etienne into a young gentleman and suitable heir to the Maratier fortune.
And given their impoverished background, it will be interesting to see what type of young man Etienne becomes eventually. Perhaps it is possible to make a silk purse from a sow's ears.
On that first morning when Etienne drove us to school, I had very mixed feelings as Norge and I trotted up the long, gravelled driveway leading to the ivy-clad, cloistered buildings of my old school. I recalled the many happy occasions I shared there with my former friends, Miles, Jack and Daniel and tears misted my eyes at the sadness I felt. The loss of their friendship still affected me. And I recalled my recent encounter with Francois Fournier - another school friend - in his quarries.
I remembered the shame I'd felt as Francois talked to my overseer about me. That morning, standing as a naked, yoked slave in front of my former friend, had inwardly distressed me deeply. I was very self-conscious of my nakedness and yet it wasn't the first time he'd seen me in the nude. In fact, we'd often resorted to naked wrestling in the showers after a rowing session at school. Then, our nakedness had been on equal terms. That day, in the quarry, it had been anything but equal. My enforced nakedness showed my slave status and shamed me in front of one who'd once been my boyhood friend.
Returning to my school as a driven harness pony had much the same effect. Master Etienne had driven us hard and whipped us unmercifully. Our sweat-soaked backs - from our shoulders to our asses - showed the red stripes of the whip which he had enthusiastically applied to us. And Master Etienne had perfected the knack of flicking the tip of his whip against our testicles to keep us moving. Our cinched balls, tightly bundled within our scrotums, were easy targets for Etienne's whip and he'd not held back in its use on them. To say that Norge and I had "tender balls" was an understatement of the fact.
As Master Etienne guided us through the imposing gateway into the school grounds, he'd slowed us down to a gentle trot. He'd not done this out of consideration for us; rather he was obeying the signs at the entrance which set the maximum speed for all vehicular traffic at eight kilometres per hour. We weren't the only ponies and trap being driven to school that morning. It appeared that many other students also drove their families' ponies to school.
This was a new phenomenon for me; back in my student days, such a practise would never have been permitted by the school governors. They would have seen the presence of so many naked, harness slaves as lowering the tone of the school's illustrious and jealously guarded image.
But now in the interests of modern business practices, the students are allowed to drive their ponies to school. The new management committee has set aside a stable where, for a fee, the ponies are held in shackles during school hours while their young Masters attend their classes.
In the past, the school had been discreet in its use of slaves and their numbers were kept to the absolute minimum required to maintain the school's buildings and sporting ovals. Those verdant green, playing fields, immaculately kept by the grounds slaves, stood on the banks of a broad river which shimmered silver and gold in the early morning sunlight. I'd rowed on this river with Francois and built on its banks were the rowing sheds and the dressing rooms where we'd wrestled so boisterously after our rowing sessions. The thought of those boyish hijinks brought a lump to my throat.
As we paused in front of the school's main entrance, memories came flooding back of my own carefree schooldays. The uniform worn by today's pupils is the same as the one I'd once worn. The tailored grey slacks, the pale dove-grey shirt and striped tie, the colourful maroon blazer with the gold trim and the straw boater hat - universally disliked in my day as old-fashioned - were identical to those I'd worn all those years ago.
We stood as Master Etienne waited for the slave who'd accompanied him to retrieve his satchel and books from the luggage compartment of the trap and to take them to him. Unfortunately, the clumsy slave dropped a book and was loudly berated by his young Master. Flustered, the slave bent to pick up the book and as he did so Master Etienne slapped his ass and told the slave he's just earned himself ten strokes of the cane. Etienne continued to berate the slave - much to the amusement of his loudly cheering, fellow students - and told the slave he was to remind him of his punishment later that afternoon.
As Norge and I looked on, I saw again the helpless plight of the enslaved. We truly are at the mercy of our Masters and our lives are full of pitfalls which can see us punished at a mere whim. How demeaning it was to watch an adult slave being humiliatingly berated by his school-aged Master before his classmates.
Nostalgically, I watched as Master Etienne joined with some other boys and climbed the steps leading to the imposing front entrance to the school. Above the door was the school's coat-of-arms and Latin motto which is replicated on the top pocket of the students' blazers.
I knew the routine well; for I had once been so much a part of it. The students would stow their books in their desks and move quickly to gather in the Great Hall for morning assembly. Here they would be lead in Morning Prayer by the school's chaplain and sing hymns of thanksgiving for all the good things in their lives.
I wondered how many of the young Masters included their slaves in their prayers or songs of thanksgiving. Yet, I already knew the answer - none! In my times at morning assembly, I'd never once given any thought to a slave. Why then would today's students be any different to me.
All that was familiar came flooding back to me. I watched as teachers, dressed in their flapping, black gowns, hurried up the steps and into the building. I didn't recognise them from my student days. But it was some years since I'd graduated and no doubt the teachers who'd taught me had all moved on.
But there was one exception. Lagging behind was a stooped, grey haired teacher from my school- days. As he slowly walked past, heavily laden down with his books, I remembered him well. He was my old language teacher and I'd once been a favourite pupil of his. From him I'd learned my English expression, the intricacies of Latin and Classical Greek and the nuances of my favourite French.
How thankful I was that he didn't recognise me - indeed he walked past without a sideways glance in my direction. But why would he look at me. I was a naked slave harnessed with another slave to a cart and we as such we didn't rate a second glance.
And even if he did look at me would he have recognised in the naked slave a favourite pupil from so long ago. I doubt it very much. And for that I was very grateful.
As the slave drove Norge and me away from Master Etienne's school, he did so at a leisurely pace. Perhaps mindful of his imminent caning at Etienne's hands, he withheld the whip and gave us verbal instructions to keep us moving.
Each morning, I returned to my old school and fortuitously, I was never recognised. I lived in dread of a member of staff or a visiting "old boy" doing so. How I would have handled that emotionally is open to conjecture. Of course, had that happened, I would have just stood passively and mute and suffered the comments or any insults directed at me. I had no other recourse but to suffer in silence. Yet, I knew my inner turmoil would be intolerable.
Always as I was driven to my old school, I felt the wretchedness of my situation. Previously, I'd entered into the school grounds as a pampered, spoiled student with the world at my feet. Now I entered it as a naked harness-slave. The irony of my situation wasn't lost on me. How many other slaves can say they graduated with "cum laude" from these hallowed halls of learning? I would venture to say I am the only one. Undoubtedly, education made me over-qualified for my role as a slave. My past learning has no part to play in my present life. Indeed, I am forbidden any intellectual stimulation as all reading is now forbidden to me.
My memories of my schooldays are bittersweet ones made even more so by my reminiscences of happier days spent with my close friends, Miles, Jack and Daniel and my rowing partner, Francois. At first, the loss of those friendships cut deep into my soul but my burgeoning love of Norge has more than compensated for those losses.
But I still grieve for the lost friendships of my youth and occasionally, just occasionally, I wonder about my four, former friends. And I wonder if they ever give any thought to me?
Eventually, Master Etienne matured to a level where his father considered him ready for his own pony and trap. Buying a suitable trap was easy; finding the right pony to pull it proved slightly more difficult. Master consulted with Claymore Jackson on the suitability of La Foret's ponies. Many were tested and found wanting. Some were considered too strong for a boy of Etienne's slight stature to control and others seen as too flighty or high-spirited. Although, from my experience with Master Etienne's holding of the reins, I believed he was very capable of handling any pony.
Eventually a decision was made and Norge's friend, Jake became Master Etienne's personal pony. Jake was brought in from La Foret and now shares the stables with Norge and me. Each morning, he is groomed with us and then he is harnessed to Etienne's cart and tethered in the courtyard until his young Master requires him.
Jake now leads a very different life to the one he lived at La Foret. For a start, his duties are less onerous and his workload less demanding. Now, all that is expected of Jake is that he delivers Master Etienne to school each morning and returns home with him each afternoon. In between, Jake spends the day shackled and secured in the school's stables with all the other ponies belonging to the students.
Jake has more than once spoken of his boredom in spending his days locked away in the school stables. He frets at the inactivity of being shackled until he is reharnessed to Master Etienne's cart in the afternoon. He tells Norge and me how he envies us as our Master's drives us throughout the day and how he wishes he could share in our physical activity as we run side by side delivering our Master from destination to destination.
To be continued...................
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