FALSELY ENSLAVED
By Pete Brown petebrownuk @ yahoo.com
Read all of Pete's stories at groups.yahoo.com/group/petebrownseroticstories
A story in two parts. Part one.
If those fucking enslavers hadn't taken me, I wouldn't be where I am now!
When I graduated from college my life was a bit of a mess. The girl I'd been living with on campus for the last two years dumped me, saying that although I was a good fuck she didn't think I was a very good long term prospect, as with playing so much sport I hadn't got a good degree and so my career opportunities were limited. Mom and dad were pissed off at me, too, and dad kept saying that these days without a good degree all I had to look forward was a life of toil at some admin stuff in a big glass tower, and that I'd wasted my life.
Frankly, I was fed up with the lot of them, and mom and dad were even crosser when I told them I was going to go off and see the country, before I did anything else. I reckoned that a good long coast-to-coast trip would help me "find myself", too. They didn't want me to go, and dad refused to lend me any more money in the hope of stopping me, but I said I'd get casual jobs and wash dishes if I had to. They then begged and pleaded with me not to go into the South, as they thought the whole slavery thing was totally immoral, and they didn't want me supporting it in any way by staying at motels down there or eating in restaurants and stuff like that. Well, that was pretty stupid, I thought, as I really wanted to see "the South" as there's so much interesting stuff down there. So I told a little white lie, promised not to go south, and set off.
I wasn't breaking the speed limit or anything, so I didn't understand it at all when I saw the cops lights flashing in my mirror. But I'm a law abiding kind of guy, and although my bike could probably have outrun their cruiser, I pulled into the side. They were typical southern "good ole boys" in their tight pants, dark blue shirts and sunhats, and I couldn't see their eyes at all because of their shades. They took my licence, then asked me what the fuck I was doing out there in the boonies, and seemed interested when I told them I was just touring. They asked me how long I'd been gone for (three months by now), and where I'd come from (some little hick town way out in the country last night), then went into a kind of huddle, talking to each other a bit secretively, and sort of looking at me every now and then as I stood there. Finally, they came back over to me and before I could do anything, the younger of the two whipped out his cuffs and cuffed my wrists behind my back.
They simply ignored my protests. They refused to tell me why I was being arrested. I was bundled into the back of their cruiser, and the old one drove, with the younger one following, on my bike! I kept asking what I was supposed to have done, but the cop kept on driving and if he spoke at all, it was only to tell me to shut the fuck up, if I knew what was good for me.
It was surprising we didn't head for the next town, I thought, and kept turning off onto even smaller and smaller roads. Then we pulled to a halt in front of a building mostly hidden by the trees. It was kind of quiet, there, though, and there didn't seem to be any windows or anything in it. I asked if this was the sheriff's office or something, but was told to shut up again.
The two cops led me in, and we were in a sort of vestibule, with a door opposite, and not much else. Eventually a big, florid man in a loud check suit came out, and shook the cops' hands. They evidently all knew each other well. The older cop told him that they'd found me way out from anywhere, that they'd seen I had out of state plates, and had stopped me - and then found I was a traveller, and had been on the road for three months. "So we brought him here", he finished, "as he's a good looking guy, and kind of fit, and well sized" (I am six four, actually).
The florid guy nodded, then said "So let's see him then, before agreeing a price." To my utter astonishment - I hardly had time to cry out and protest before it was done - the young cop dropped to his knees in front of me, undid my belt and the buttons of my jeans, and pushed them down to my ankles. Then in a smooth movement he yanked my boxer shorts down, so I was naked from the waist down, with the hem of my T hovering somewhere just above the top of my pubes!
"Hold him tight now", the man demanded, and the big cop grabbed my biceps and held them tight behind my back. The florid man reached out and up, and began fondling my balls as if it was the most natural thing in the world to be doing. I could feel the palm of his hand all hot and sweaty against my skin, and then he began to probe at my balls, separating them with his thumb.
"He's OK", he told the cops. "I always check now, as I had a young guy in here last year and he was found to have testicular cancer - it's a problem for young men. His value was halved when we had to have his balls removed. But same as usual, OK? A thousand new dollars?"
I could hardly believe it! This man was buying me from the cops! I shouted out, telling him he couldn't do that, and the next minute I was writhing on the ground - the young cop had simply swung a blow at me, right into the solar plexus. I lay there, scrabbling feebly and coughing and groaning. No one had ever deliberately hit me before, and I began to understand the power that one man has over another, when one of them is cuffed and can't retaliate.
"Listen, boy", the florid man told me. "You're my property now, and I don't like to be told what I can, and cannot do."
The cops hauled me to my feet, and the older one said "Get your men in to take him, then - we need our cuffs back, as we can't go back to the station missing another set - the sergeant is getting a bit suspicious as to why we keep losing them."
"Look, please", I started. "Call my dad, he'll pay you more to let me go.... We've got money...." This time it was the big cop who hit me, a staggering blow across the side of my face and once more I was lying on the floor. "I kept telling you in the cruiser to shut the fuck up, and maybe now you'll learn", he told me with a sneer. "You'd better get into the habit of keeping quiet, boy - owners don't like their slaveboys chattering away."
"I'm not a slave!"
"You are now, boy! Jed here specialises in turning men like you we find out of the road into properly documented slaves. He has a nice little business in producing strong, fit, young men that the market likes - there's a real shortage of men like you since criminals have realised that there's no percentage in it: jail was easy, but enslavement is for life. The crime figures have plummeted, but it makes for a real shortage of young slaves, and so you'll fetch a good price and a nice profit for Jed."
I listened with a sick horror, as of course I knew that in the South the law was totally different, and the reintroduction of slavery had made huge differences to the social context of the north and south. I really wished I'd listened to mom and dad now, and had never ventured down here.
The door opened and the florid man, Jed, reappeared with two others who I can only describe as "guards" - big, tough-looking, and kind of stupid looking in that way that many men who do jobs like that are: they only know how to obey orders, but that's enough.
Well, I don't want to bore you with the horrors I experienced that day. I was uncuffed and the two goons grabbed me, and half dragged me through the door. They stripped the remains of my clothes off me, and my watch and the gold chain I wore around my neck that had been a present from my ex-girlfriend, and it was almost as if they wanted me to protest and struggle, as then their fists and boots could go in to "discipline" me. They also showed me a kind of cattle prod thing, and threatened to shock me into submission if necessary. They almost threw me under a cold shower, and then, when I was standing there shivering, they used clippers and then a razor to take all the hair off me below the eyebrows - and I do mean all! I could hardly believe it at first as the clippers sliced through my pubes, and by the time they'd finished all that and had started with the razor over my chest and arms and legs, I was no longer in a mood to protest - I was terrified that something dreadful would happen as the razor scraped over the surface of my ball sac. And it was so fucking humiliating to have to lie there, pulling my butt cheeks apart, so they could shave all down there, too!
It had never occurred to me that slave collars actually weight a lot - well, on the TV series we get, even in the north, the slaves all just carry on as if they weigh almost nothing. But I reckon the heavy, iron collar they put around me must have weighed about three pounds, and I felt physically bowed down by it as well as feeling the mental oppression it gave. And in my dreams sometimes I can still hear the terrible clanging sound as the rivet holding it closed was flattened so it could not come apart - the striking of the hammer so close to my ear was almost like the tolling of a bell for the loss of my freedom.
I caught sight of myself in a mirror as they were leading me across the room then - perhaps it was in there deliberately, to show men how they had now changed. I couldn't believe the sight I saw: instead of the thick matt of manly hair on my chest and the luxuriant trail across my belly leading to the thick forest of my pubes, I was now completely bare and exposed. I looked like some kind of overgrown school kid - I mean, there's no disguising the fact that I'm physically tall and well muscled, and my dick and balls are all "in proportion", but without all my body hair I was now somehow younger looking and vulnerable.
The goons laughed, and told me they reckoned that any man buying someone with a body like mine would keep me totally nude, except for my collar, as it was good to look at such nice muscle.
Even now I can remember the searing agony as they pressed the electric branding iron into my left butt cheek. They knew I'd struggle, of course, and didn't just rely on their own physical strength to hold me - unlike when being shaved, I was strapped down to a "horse", with leather straps around my waist and thighs to make sure my butt was totally unable to move. One of them even stabbed at me with a thin screwdriver, enough to cause blood to flow, to make sure I really was absolutely immobile. I couldn't believe the sheer cruelty of that act, to hurt a man just to test his bindings, but it was only indicative of what was about to happen. They never show it to you in detail on the TV, but to do the "S" brand on the butt properly the branding iron has to be at the right temperature, but then it actually has to be held against the skin for exactly the right amount of time to sear through the upper layers of the epidermis. It's easy to test if the iron is at the right temperature - they just touched it onto the back of my hand to see if it instantly caused a burn mark. The scream I gave then was as nothing to the tortured cries that came a few seconds later as the iron was held against me: my throat was ragged and hoarse afterwards, so loudly and long did I cry out. I felt total nausea as the smell of charring meat - my body, not some barbecue meats which is where I'd smelled it before - came to my nose. And I have to confess that I lost control of my bladder, and pissed onto the floor between my legs as I lay there totally helpless.
Jed reappeared after that, and gave them my eight digit SIN (slave identification number, for those of you unfamiliar with the way slaves are inducted in our country). He told me they'd got it off a slave who'd died at a ranch a few miles away in a work-related accident: it was convenient for the owner not to report it to the authorities and have the SIN removed from the national database, as he could instead "sell it on" for re-use here and simply dispose of the dead slave in a lime pit along with dead cattle. "What about a name, boss", one of the goons asked, and I managed to hold my sobs long enough to say "I'm Mark....".
"We're doing 'S' this month, as it's easier to keep track of the accounts that way. We've done Sam, and Stu, and Sean.... So this one had better be Steve, I guess. He looks a bit like a Steve, if you know what I mean - I always think that Steves are big, muscular men, like this slave."
I'd seen guys in the fancy tattoo parlours spending hours on having designs done, and my ex-girlfriend had even had a little rose design done on her right hip, that I found to be a real turn-on. But if all you want is a set of numbers on the left pec, and "Steve" on the right, then a little automatic tattoo machine can do it all. The goons only had to set the characters on the in-built keyboard, and then hold the box against my skin and press a button, and a thousand or more steel pins inside fired down and did it all at once. Very unpleasant, but when your whole body is in agony still from the brand on your butt, you hardly notice it.
The boss man looked at the goons and said "Well done. I've got some people stopping by tomorrow, and it will be good to have this one to show them as well as they're looking for a tall, strong slave, they said. But we've run out of storage space, as I wasn't expecting those cops to brig me fresh meat until next week. So double him up with that big nigga who came in two days ago - I expect they'll want to look at him, too, as they didn't say whether they were interested in a nigga, or a whitey." So that's what I was, then - a white slave now, a "whitey", compared with a nigga. I wondered what they called the Mexicans!
"You'll never get away with this!", I said, summoning up the last reserves of my courage and fearing another beating. "As soon as someone has bought me, or even when you try to sell me, I'll tell them I've been illegally enslaved. I know that even in this godforsaken South there are still some laws, and you can't do this: only a court can order the enslavement of a man."
The boss and the goons all laughed. "Listen, boy, and get real! Anyone who buys a slave from an operation like mine knows he's getting a real bargain, and, frankly, it can't be totally kosher! So it doesn't matter - tell him all you want, providing he doesn't fit you with a permanent gag, or even has your vocal chords cut. He won't care - a naked man, with a slave collar, tattooed with a SIN, a SIN that's actually in the national database, is a slave. Naked, collared, tattooed means 'slave'. It's as simple as that. And after he's spent all his money on you, he's not going to care - not going t o investigate or anything, as, frankly, he doesn't want to know: if you were freed, he'd be out of pocket."
As he said this he motioned to the goons, and they grabbed me and dragged me through into the next room, which was evidently a "holding" area: there were what I can only describe as "cages" around the walls, cages like you see in those films where people capture wild animals in the jungle - about five feet on a cube, made of metal bars, with a small door in one side with a padlock on it. There were ten cages in there, and every one contained a naked man: they were all sitting, or lying curled up, but when we came in some of them tried to stand - they couldn't do it, of course, but gripped the bars of their cages and kind of half crouched, to get a better view.
They dragged me to one of the cages where a big black guy was "standing". "Back, nigga!", one of the goons snapped as he went to undo the padlock on the door. I saw the black guy hesitate, but the guard prodded at him with a the prod thing form his belt, and the man backed away instantly, as if he didn't want the thing anywhere near him. "See", the goon said to me, "The nigga here's got some sense! He's seen the slave prod in action, and the last thing you want is the tip of it touching your bare skin as when I fire it, the voltage really hurts. And you've got lots of bare skin to aim at, so be careful."
I had to go down on my hands and knees and actually crawl through the cage door - it was so fucking humiliating to have to enter like some sort of animal, especially as I could imagine some of the other guys watching my balls as they swung between my thighs as I did so. And this cage was fucking cramped - well, it would have been just about OK for one guy, but with two of us in there, well, it was hard to avoid touching the nigga. I'd never been that physically close to another naked man before, and I did my best to avoid his naked skin, but it was difficult.
He just half sat, half crouched there, listening to me as I ranted on about the unfairness of it, the illegality, how I couldn't believe they could do things like this to another man.... And then he said calmly "You're right, of course. But it doesn't help one little bit. We're slaves now, well, as good as, anyway, and there's not a fucking thing we can do about it."
"Sam", as that was his name, I read from his pec, then told me how he'd been a marine. He'd just finished a tour of duty, and before deciding whether to re-sign, had decided to "go back home" and visit his folks. They'd grabbed him as he was waiting for a bus connection, and "Sam" (he was actually Charlie, but knew that in future he'd be called Sam as that was cut into his flesh, and so he knew he'd better get used to it) reckoned there was no hope for him - the marines wouldn't be looking for him, well, at least not until they tried to pay his pension in many years time - and he'd wanted to surprise his folks and hadn't told them he was travelling to them. "Twenty eight, and a fucking slave!", he finished with. "All those years in the marines, obeying orders, and now a fucking slave!"
I looked at him in the dim light, and could see that he was clearly used to taking care of himself - his body, totally devoid of hair, like mine, showed off his hard muscles to perfection. There wasn't an ounce of fat on him, and he looked like a big, strong panther, waiting to pounce. I couldn't help looking at his dick - well, all guys like to compare their dicks with another one, don't they? - and, like me, it was in proper proportion to the rest of him and his balls, too, were low hanging, with the sac hanging down below the tip of the dick. I hate to have to say it, though, but I reckon his might even be a bit thicker than mine - not that it matters, as when you're erect, those little differences tend to disappear, don't they?
We had a really uncomfortable night. Sam was probably used to being in close proximity to another guy, from living in the barracks and sharing a tent on manoeuvres and all that kind of stuff, but I wasn't and I tried desperately not to touch him at all. But as you sleep and you move around, you can't help it, can you? And I kept waking up and finding his arm on me, or my arm over him, or even once, horrifyingly, I found my dick was rock hard and actually sort of nuzzling at the top of the crack in his big muscular butt. I pulled away, blushing furiously, and hoping that he really was asleep and hadn't noticed.
It wasn't easy sleeping at all, though - for one thing, the pain from my bruises and the agony from my brand were not conducive to sleep. But for another, it was the constant noise: eleven guys sleeping in a small room make a lot of it: not just their breathing, which you can hear when it's quiet, but snoring, and then those little cries and moans that some men make when they're dreaming. If you're used to having your own room, like me, it takes some getting used to, I can tell you. And with being so close to Sam, his own breathing - deep, and calm - was disturbing anyway, but I suppose I must be glad he didn't snore. Well, rather, he doesn't snore if he's sleeping sprawled across the corner of a cage, half sitting up. Get him in a bed, on his back, and all hell breaks loose.
We all woke up when the morning sun came in through the one tiny window, and I was immediately embarrassed as I had my usual morning wood - it was one of my pleasures to jerk off before getting up, but of course I couldn't do this now, and I had to lie there, trying to conceal it as best I could. I noticed that several of the other guys, particularly Sam, were in the same condition, though, and gradually, one by one, they subsided. I desperately needed to piss then, as my bladder was bursting, and I watched as Sam knelt by the bars, pushed his dick through, and just pissed on to the concrete floor. He saw me looking, and shrugged. "There's nowhere else. And yesterday they came through and hosed the floor down, so I guess it's OK."
Sam said then that they hadn't been fed the day before, although they came through with water three times a day, and he reckoned it was all part of our "processing". "I mean, Steve", he told me, "A lot of guys they get in here, even young fit ones, could do with losing a pound or two, so withholding the food is probably good for them. And, anyway, a man who's hungry, really hungry, is probably a lot easier to control compared to someone with a full belly ready to fuel his fight responses in his body."
"Well I'm not fat, and I'm fucking hungry", was all I could say, and Sam responded, much more calmly, "Look, we're locked in this cage. If they choose not to feed us, there's not a fuck we can do about it. We'd just better hope they haven't deserted the place totally, got arrested, or something, or died in a pile-up on the Interstate - after a few weeks all they'd find is skeletons in here. There's no way naked men can break through these bars, however desperate we were."
I began to realise how totally at another man's command I was, and there was just no way I could get a snack, or a soda, or anything, unless they brought it to me. It was really scary, and totally worrying.
The goons hauled both Sam and me out of the cages quite soon, though. One of them held one of the prod things as the other cuffed our hands behind our backs - that does really make you feel out of control, as you have so few ways of retaliating, whatever they do to you. Then, as we stood there, they used a hose of cold water to roughly wash us down, and led us out into the first room I'd been in, on arrival. A tall, lean man was standing there in a tan business suit with a bright yellow tie: something was clearly not right about him, as the suit was too flamboyant, or the leather boots peeping out from the cuffs of the pants should not have had heels on them, or he ought not to have worn a big diamond stud earring, or something. Clearly he was not a proper businessman, but someone who was dressed up like he imagined businessmen dressed, perhaps to fool the public.
The florid boss man, Jed, was there, and he was explaining that as he'd been asked to locate a tall muscular slave, preferably handsome, between twenty and thirty, and as he had in fact got two such, he was pleased to present them both, so that a choice could be made.
Mr tan suit inspected us both. I'd never had another man "handle" me before, not like that. Well, I mean, sometimes a doctor feels a swelling or something, and at those yearly exams he may do a rectal thing. But Mr tan suit was thorough - his hands were probing my neck ,then my shoulders, then on down my back, his fingers pressing and prying at the ribs. He cupped my butt in his hands, and then stuck his thumbs in my crack and sort of "kneaded" them to feel the power, he said. I hated it, hated having to stand there as if I was an animal at a cattle show. And then when he started on my front, it as even worse: I had to open my mouth, so he could run a finger around inside, stroking my teeth looking for cavities. I've never had anyone play with my nips - not even my girlfriend - and I squirmed as he teased them, to make them erect, before remarking to Jed "Nice big, dark aureoles. Always a good feature. Sells better than those tiny pink patches on some men. Was there much hair?" When he was told there had been quite a thatch shaved off ,he nodded "Always a good plan. The public likes to 'see' a slave's muscles." He probed my navel, commenting on how nicely I'd been "tied" and calling it "another good feature", an then went to work on my dick and balls.
I hated it. Hated his sweaty hands touching my intimate parts. Hated being touched at all, actually.
Only the presence of the goons and their prods stopped me from kicking out at him, or spitting in his face. But he sensed my hate, I think, as he said casually "Easy, boy - you've got to get used to this, you know. My buyers will all be doing this to you.... Now, soon over...." As he said this, his hand cupped my dick and his thumb teased by 'skin back, to expose my dick head. I just couldn't help it - I went hard, and, simultaneously began to blush: it felt like all over! Men without 'skins just can't imagine what a "private" thing the dick head is - no one but you, and your girl friend, ever see it. At school, in the gym, all those kind of places, it's always decently covered, and now here was this other man, this perfect stranger, rolling back my 'skin so he could take a closer look.
At last, though, my humiliation was over - or so I thought! They pushed me over towards a table, and told me to lie down on my belly on it with my feet on the floor. I felt my butt being prised apart, heard the "snap" of a plastic glove being pulled on, and then Mr tan suit's finger began to force its way into my hole. I moaned, and tried to get away, and all I got was a resounding slap across my bare butt and a command to "Keep still, fucker". But then it really was over, as Jed was asked "Is he a virgin? He's really tight...."
"Could be. We've done some checking from his driver's licence, and it seems he was shacked up with some woman for the past two years. Before that, of course, at school... Who can say?" Well, I could have, I suppose. But it was disgusting, them even thinking that I might have taken a dick up my ass, so I remained silent.
They went through the whole thing with Sam then, as I watched, and afterwards Jed asked "Which one, then?"
"It's a tough choice, but I've got a big sale coming up, and I think these two might be interesting publicity- they're very alike, except for the colour, of course, and it might make a nice contrast for the public to see a nigga and a whitey together. So how about I pay you for one, but take the two, and pay you for the other one as soon as either of them is sold?"
The dickering began then, and I was amazed at the "mark up" Jed had on us over the thousand new dollars he'd paid the cops - the "processing" he'd had done hadn't cost that much, and this was a pretty cheap building: he must be making a fortune at this, I thought.
Still cuffed, Sam and I were taken outside and loaded into the rear compartment of a big SUV - now we were really cramped, and we just couldn't help being in close contact with each other. But Sam told me to calm down, and soon Mr tan suit appeared and drove us off. I tried to tell him that we were illegally enslaved, but he just laughed. "That's why I got such a good price", he told us. "And why I'll make so much money when I sell you on, as coming from a reputable dealer, you'll start to have 'provenance'. I'll probably gag you, though, as we don't want the public scared off, do we?"
The local town was some sort of market centre, as there were more stores than you generally expect, along what was still, recognisably, a "main street". Tan suit pulled his SUV into a yard at the back of the street, and soon his own guards - much the same pattern as before, with those slave prod things at the ready, were unloading us. We did get fed then, though - my first taste of slave chow, but I was so hungry I ate it anyway (as was to become the norm, actually! I was always hungry from all the exercise, and all I was ever fed was slave chow). And after that, Sam and I were immersed in a kind of big whirlpool bath, and had to lie there soaking, as one of the guards told us that it was understood that this got us cleaner than showering. It was good to shave off the stubble on my chin, too (I've got a strongly-growing beard), and then they tossed us a couple of plastic squeeze bottles and said "oil up". Of course I got used to this later, but this was the first time I'd ever had slave oil ("specially formulated to make the pelt glisten and gleam") rubbed in, and realised that the bits of myself I couldn't reach were going to be done by Sam, and that I was in turn going to have to rub my hands all over his shoulders. I'd never touched anyone like this before - well, my girlfriend, at the beach - and I must confess it was rather erotic, and I had to keep willing myself not to spring a wood. I could see afterwards why we were totally body shaved then: under the lights, our bodies looked fantastic as every movement of our muscles caused a shift in the light, and the eye was drawn over and over again to the solid planes, interesting valleys, and generally desirable features of our bodies.
I hated being in the window display! The store was on a corner site, on main street and the prime cross street, and two big plate glass windows (strengthened, and unbreakable) looked out to both streets. Making a square inside the showroom, the two other walls were the conventional "bars", and Sam and I were pushed through the door and the door was locked. There we were, stark naked, with the world going by outside and absolutely no way of hiding ourselves. Even worse, we could read the reverse of a big banner that ran across the top of each window saying "Prime stock sale. Every single slave 20% off this week only."
People kept stopping and peering in at us, shading their eyes against the glare of the sun so they could get a better view. Women seemed to like to take a really long look at us, and once school was out, we could even hear the comments of some of the kids through the glass. At first, Sam and I tried to hide, sitting in opposite corners and pulling our knees up to our chins to conceal as much of our body as possible. The dealer had though of this, though, as the floor was actually electrified - a pattern of fine wires criss-crossed it. After we'd been "stung" once or twice, and realised that there was one of those motion sensors high up in the corner that turned on the current if there was no movement for a minute, we never sat down again that day. In only a bit over twenty four hours I'd gone from being a free spirit, riding my bike of a voyage of adventure and discovery, to being an oiled, naked slave, prancing around and totally unable to control my life, to act as some sort of advertisement for a dealer's stock clearance.
The dealer's strategy of having both of us on display like that seemed to work, though, as we saw several potential buyers come in inquire about us - they all went away, though, and Sam and I wondered what on earth the tan-suited guy was asking for us! In a way it was kind of flattering to reckon we were worth a lot of money, but, equally, I hated the thought of being up for sale, with a price on me, just as if I was some sort of animal.
We were fervently hoping it was nearing closing time as both Sam and I were really tired out from having to keep moving, when we saw a distinguished looking man, accompanied by a much younger one, engaging the tan suit in discussion. After some time, the goons were summoned and Sam and I were cuffed and taken out of the cage and led over to where the three men were standing. I could sense "money" at once, as the distinguished looking man was wearing an elegant silk shirt that perfectly toned with his hand-tailored linen jacket and slacks, and his brown loafers were of that soft, subtle leather that costs an absolute fortune. There was a slim, very slim, and therefore excessively expensive, gold wrist watch on his wrist, and he seemed to be surrounded by an aura of expensive cologne. The younger man wasn't properly a man, I thought: but he too was expensively dressed, in "designer" jeans and a shirt, and casually clipped to the leather belt there was the very latest mobile phone, the one I'd lusted after, as it had "all the bells and whistles", at a correspondingly high price.
Some discussion was going on, as the elder man was saying "No, Brett, now that I've seen them close to, they are definitely unsuitable. And they're not trained."
"You're wrong, dad! They're fantastic! You promised me a slave of my own if I graduated in the top five of my class, and I did. You know I want to take a slave to college with me, and this is exactly the type of slave I'm looking for - big and strong....."
"But they're not trained, Brett..."
"Which is why they're so cheap, dad! If we were looking in a city dealer's for a fully-trained slave anything like one of these, the price would be at least four times as much. And, anyway, I'll enjoy training them. It will give me something to do for the summer. And we've got all the facilities we need at the ranch, before you raise that as an objection... Mr Stryker trains slaves for you all the time, and he can help me out if I have problems."
"No, Brett, I think you need a younger, smaller slave, one who's more 'biddable' than either of these two look. They're rough, and unmanageable.... And they're too old."
The dealer cut in "Not old at all, sir. The whitey's twenty three, and the nigga twenty eight."
"As I said", the distinguished man went on. "Too old for a lad of seventeen. He needs someone more his own age, or a bit younger. Haven't you got any sixteen year olds, who can be trained for personal service?"
"Dad, no!" The kid blurted out. "You don't listen, do you? I'm guaranteed a place in the frat house ,with both you and uncle George being alumni and making all those donations, and they have their own staff of slaves to look after the brothers. But the rules forbid students taking cars with them, because of all the traffic around the campus. So I need a pony, to get around - or else I'll have to take a push bike! It's not smart, dad - all the guys in our frat are rich, and they all have ponies, and I'll look like the poor relation if I have to bike everywhere.... And these slaves are perfect - long legs, big frames, so we can develop their lung capacity for endurance, lovely muscular butts for real power...."
The distinguished man kind of peered at Sam and me, as if verifying what his son had said. "I can see what you mean. But these slaves are new, not bred to it....."
"....all the more interesting to train them, dad! And think of the value-add: you're always telling me that's what business is about, taking one thing, adding value, and selling it on at a higher price. Once I've finished at college, there'll be huge profits from a fully trained pony."
"I'm suspicious that they're so cheap", the father said to the dealer. "There must be some snag - a heart murmur, collapsed kidneys, a diagnosis of cancer....?"
"No, not at all", the dealer smiled , then put his arm around the man's shoulders (to a faint shudder of disgust from the man as the dealer touched his exquisite jacket). I could see him talking, whispering, and could see that he was probably telling about our origin. "....so you see", he concluded, "They're properly registered, they've got a valid SIN.... But at those prices you just have to be a little careful about them speaking out, at least for the first six months or so, and after that, it's usually not a problem as the slave has adapted."
Well, I didn't think I'd ever give up on trying to tell people I'd been illegally enslaved, so perhaps there was hope for me. But I could see the distinguished man was now in a quite different mood. He turned to his son. "Brett, I think there is a profit to be made here, and a mighty big one, too, now I understand the origins of these slaves. Providing you guarantee that you'll train him, and look after him at college...."
"Of course, dad! And Mr Stryker will help with the training."
"I don't want Stryker distracted, Brett! He has the place to run for me, as I'm away on business so much. Now, do you want the black one, or the white one?"
I went to say something, and the goon nearest to me stabbed at me menacingly with a prod. I hated the idea of being sold, but what could I do? It's not right to sell a man as if he's an object. Some kid shouldn't be able to pick me, or Sam, as if he was choosing a new mobile phone or something.
"Dad, if it's profitable to train one, why not take both? I can have a pair, then. And think of how good it will be when you come up at weekends - I'll be the only guy on campus with a pair.... And you'll be the only dad who everyone can see can afford to give me such a present...."
The man smiled. "You're a chip of the old block, Brett! You've convinced me." He turned to the dealer, and said "Now, let's talk a discounted price for the pair of them....."
I was sold! Free man to sold object, so terrifyingly quickly. I looked at Sam, and he just shrugged. I remembered my own high school graduation gift - my watch, now lying somewhere back in that place in the boonies. That Brett seemed to have it made.
End Of Part One