Steve Grows Up
By Pete Brown petebrownuk @ yahoo.com
Read all of Pete's stories at groups.yahoo.com/group/petebrownsetoticstries
Part 4
I didn't sleep well that night. For one thing, Cliff was wide awake and wanted to talk to me - he was really interested in knowing what the inside of the big house was like. I tried to give him truthful answers as far as possible, but I was going to do what mom and dad wanted and not tell him everything: after all, in only two years time when he was sixteen, he'd be finding out for himself! Then he demanded to know why I was wearing dad's boxers, and I had to make up some lie about mom having got the laundry mixed up, and he told me he thought it was "gross" to wear another guy's underwear, even if it was freshly laundered. I wondered what he'd think about having another man's dick up your ass!
He did go to sleep eventually, but only after he'd thought I'd gone to sleep, and then only after he'd noisily and uninhibitedly jerked himself off. And then through the wall I could hear the low murmur of mom and dad talking as they went to bed - followed shortly by the unmistakable sounds of their bed creaking as, presumably, dad started on the job of getting mom pregnant again! As I listened to the muffled, indistinct sounds, my ears straining to try to understand what was going on, I wondered if dad was as good with mom as he had been with me. Did he go slowly and gently as he had? Did he his back arch erotically when he shot his load? Did he press his wonderful muscled body, slicked with the sweat of his exertions, close to her as he had done to me? My own dick was erect again now, and I knew that I needed to jerk off before I could sleep, so I did so as surreptitiously as I could as I didn't want to wake Cliff again - but as I lay there thinking the thoughts that we all need to make our climaxes real fun, all I could think about was dad, and the feel of him and the smell of him, and the way he'd been so gentle with me, but how it had felt to have his dick inside me. And then, of course, my mind raced away and I pictured in my mind's eye his ass, and the way it felt - and then I began to pant and sweat as I remembered that wonderful feeling of power, of domination, of control, as my dick had shafted in and out of him, and how he'd moaned with ecstasy as I'd fucked him, and how I'd shouted with the sheer pleasure of coming off into him.... And as I did, I erupted again, pumping out such a huge load that it overwhelmed the piece of toilet tissue I'd carried into bed with me and soaked my boxers.
Fortunately Cliff is one of those guys who just can't wake up in the morning and although I'm an early riser, the next morning it was to be even earlier than usual - dad came in and shook me awake and gestured for me to get up: he was in his boxers, and as I climbed out of bed I was acutely aware of standing so close to him in the tiny bedroom, my own shorts tenting out with my morning hard-on, and embarrassment starting to break out as I thought of dad seeing this and the stiff patch all over them where the cum had dried from last night. He put his finger to his lips, though, to signal that we should be quiet, then outside the room he said "Let Cliff sleep on for a bit before school - but you're a man now, and the Colonel says you're to work with me in the forge, so we have to get up, and get out."
I pushed my fingers through my hair - that instinctive gesture I do in the mornings - but now I felt only the crop that I'd been given, just like dad's. Then dad said I should go in the bathroom, and hurry on down for breakfast. He slapped my ass playfully as I turned to go, and added "....and get rid of that hard-on! We don't want to embarrass your mom."
There was a surprise waiting for me when I went down to the kitchen, too: there, standing next to dad's, was a new pair of work boots. I'd really only ever worn sneakers and stuff like that before, and now here was a pair of heavy-duty work boots with thick rubber soles in that sort of yellow-brown leather-like material. Dad saw me looking, and said "Welcome to the world of work, son. If you're going to be round the forge you'll need those as things do get dropped, and the Colonel doesn't want his s...." He almost said "slaves", but corrected himself and went on "...workers getting their toes crushed." He looked at mom then, and continued "Steve, remember what we talked about last night? Even now you know, let's not spoil it fore your brothers and sisters, OK? So we don't use the 's' word here around the house."
I nodded, and then I got my second surprise: instead of my normal glass of milk (well, I guess it was milk substitute of some kind - mom mixed it up from a big container of white powder that was supplied to us. Slaves presumably didn't warrant the real thing - although the container had all sorts of stuff on the side of it about it being "fortified" and "enriched" and "designed to complement the diet"), mom pushed a big steaming mug of coffee across the table towards me! Normally, only dad, and occasionally mom, drank coffee and all us kids had the "milk", so this was another one of those signs of me entering adulthood. The breakfast was the same as always, though - the kind of grits stuff from another packet, with boiling water added, that we had every day for breakfast, and which claimed to be "a complete food to enable a hard day's work". Complete it might be, boring it certainly was, but now I saw why we never had bacon or eggs or any of the other stuff I was given when I went around to Rob's - mom and dad never had any money to buy it, and we just ate the slave rations that were delivered in bulk in those containers.
The forge itself was attached to our tiny house but there was no inside connection, so dad and me "set out fore work" by walking out of the door and around the corner. Still, I thought I saw mom shed a tear as she waved goodbye to "her men", and dad and I strode together in our clean but threadbare jeans, white Ts and matching work boots. Once in the forge dad told me to get the fire lit - surprisingly difficult, as it's hard to get the coke and charcoal alight and glowing - as he laid out the tools for the day, and then he pulled off his T and dropped it onto a nail on the wall, gesturing for me to do the same. "Haven't you noticed, Steve, that I always take my T off?", he asked me when I looked puzzled. "You'll find you sweat a lot in here, son. But more importantly, the Colonel likes his 'workers' to work bare-chested, even if he allows them jeans, or shorts and doesn't have them totally in the buff like the niggas. It's meant to encourage 'team working or something, as guys working stripped to the waist at least know they're men, men working together - and, of course, if Mr. Stryker comes past and you're not working hard enough, his tawse can 'encourage' you as he lays it across your shoulders!"
"Dad, surely Mr. Stryker doesn't hit you...."
"Well, not very often, Steve. But he did catch me standing around idling one day, and I can ell you that it does 'encourage' you as the strands of the tawse catch your shoulder blades!"
"But dad, surely he can't hit a man...."
"Steve, you're right. If Mr. Stryker touched a man with the tawse he'd be up in court for assault, or something. But we're not men, Steve... Remember that.
A slave had no rights, and an owner can punish him as he thinks fit."
I stood there and knew that what dad said was true - we'd studied master/slave relationships in Civics at school, and I remembered all the stuff about the differences between the law for men and the law for slaves, but that how 'ethically' a good master treated a slave much as he would a man. "After all", our civics teacher had told us, "It's a mark of a civilised society that those in power treat the world properly. So just as an owner treats a favourite pet well, taking his dog to the vet if it's in pain, feeding it properly, and not punishing it arbitrarily but only when it had been disobedient, so too an owner ought to treat his slaves. After all, we are not uncivilised barbarians."
So dad and I set to work on hammering in to shape a huge set of flat iron bars that was destined to become new ornamental railings to go around some slave compound on the plantation, where the current one was considered to be too ugly and not in keeping with the air of respectable gentility that the Colonel wanted to achieve on the place. Dad never stopped, and in-between turning the big handle that drove the fan to keep the coals burning brightly, he showed me how to use the medium-weight hammer to flatten and shape the iron into the required shape. I used to use the gym at school for working out occasionally, and I soon realised how futile that had been: a half an hour of pounding away with a four pound hammer was better exercise for my muscles than all those elaborate weights machines ever were.
The only relief from this unadulterated hard work came when one of the overseers bought in four of the field niggas to have their collars adjusted: they all seemed quite interested to be here, and their eyes were shining with excitement as they stood there waiting to be dealt with, and dad told me that the niggas were often like that when they came in. As all they normally ever did was get up, get their collars chained to their coffle, then go out into the fields and work until late, then go back to their quarters to sleep, any change from the routine was exciting and special for them. Poor bastards, I thought, if the highlight of their life was to spend an hour in the blacksmith's forge having their collars adjusted.
Dad started to show me what to do but said that I couldn't do it until I was a lot more experienced, though. He had a huge pair of clippers that, with his muscles bulging with the effort, he could sheer off the head of the rivet holding the collar closed. Then he carefully measured the nigga's neck, telling the guy to strain his muscles as he did so as he needed the neck at its maximum dimensions, and selected a new collar from the pile of blanks in the corner. Once around the nigga's neck, and when dad was satisfied that it was tight, but not too tight, dad had to put a red hot iron rivet through the fastening and then hammer it flat to make sure it couldn't come out.
It was skilful work, and after the overseer had taken the niggas back, dad explained that we often did this as the niggas tended to put on muscle as they worked, and so after a few months on the plantation their initial collars needed replacing so that they didn't choke. I asked dad why the niggas had these big, heavy iron collars on, when I'd seen niggas on TV with little thin stainless steel ones, and dad explained it to me. "Look, Steve, a slave is supposed to wear a collar, and when you see them on TV they're usually niggas who are 'domestics' serving I restaurants, cleaning rooms, that sort of stuff. So their owners pay to have them neatly collared like that. But here on the plantation our niggas are just workers, and it doesn't matter - these iron collars are really cheap, as you can see that the ones I took off those niggas today can be re-used just for the cost of a rivet. And of course we can do it here, in the forge - if the niggas all had stainless steel collars, we'd need special equipment to weld it, or special glue, or whatever. It also reminds the nigga of his status - not only are these iron collars heavy, so he had a constant reminder that he's owned property, but he tends to remember the feeling as I bash in that white-hot rivet, just an inch or so away from his ear.
And of course there's no possibility of a nigga escaping wearing one of those - it's immediately obvious that a slave in a thick iron collar has it on, even if he manages to find a shirt with a high neck to try to hide it."
I looked around to make sure no one was watching or listening, and said quietly "Dad, we're not collared - if I ran away I could pass as a free man. There was a program on TV I saw at Rob's that said that they don't have slaves in Canada... I know it's a long way, but if I hitched rides and so on... I could get a job, save money, and then come back and buy you and mom from the Colonel...."
Dad looked almost panic stricken. "Steve, promise me you'll never even try such a thing! You won't make it, son - for one thing, you've got no papers, and no money. You can't buy stuff to eat in restaurants and stores without a 'meal ticket' as they call it - every free man has one now, as all their purchases are charged automatically and get passed to their bank account. And if you try to hitch a ride, what will you do when you get to a rest stop? And there are terrible stories, Steve, of truckers who pick up guys and when they realise they're not buying food, they get suspicious.... And claim the bounty! And even if you did make it to the border, you'd never get across..."
"Dad, it's thousands of miles.... I could get across easily... And what's this 'bounty'?"
"Son, you'll never get anywhere within a hundred miles of the border. Although we're not collared, we're 'chipped' - a small transponder, buried in our bodies.... In the border zone there are monitors everywhere that shriek an alarm whenever a runaway slave's chip gets within range. And the bounty is what any free man can claim who helps detect a runaway slave - half the slave's current price! And particularly for us whiteys, that's a whole lot of money, particularly for a trucker. So a lot of truckers and bus drivers and people who do a lot of travelling on the interstates all carry scanners anyway, and can see if you've been chipped. But the worse thing is, son, what happens then - once the slave patrol have you recaptured, before they return you to the Colonel they castrate you. It's mandatory.
Even the Colonel has no say in it. So when you get back here the Colonel has a eunuch, and he's prey pissed off anyway as he's had to pay the 'finder' half your value.... He's not gong to be a happy owner!"
"Dad, castrate a guy... Really?"
"Yes, Steve. It's not helpful to the slave, of course, as once he's run his owner is likely to keep him shackled in future. But it's really to serve as a warning to the rest of us. And think about your mom, the kids, and me, too, Steve - if the Colonel even suspects that we might have helped you run, he can get a court order to administer much worse punishments than usual."
"Like what?"
"Well, the Colonel can order any punishment up to and including a bull whipping that flays our backs into shreds as his right. But beyond that he needs a court order, following the passing of the Humane Treatment act ten years ago - so if he wants to geld us, or blind us, or cut the tendons in our legs, or any of that sort of stuff, he has to apply to the courts, with a 'good and sufficient justification' - and helping a slave to 'run' is certainly regarded as that by the courts. So if you don't want to see me gelded, or your mother reduced to permanently crawling, or your brothers and sisters...."
"Dad, the Colonel wouldn't do that, surely...."
"Well, I don't know, Steve. He'd lose a lot of money, of course, as a lot of our value is because we're good-looking whiteys. But if he was really pissed off, and if he wanted to send a clear signal to all the other slaves around here.... So even if you're not concerned about being gelded yourself, Steve, think of the rest of us, and don't do it."
I was going to ask dad more then, but he at once began working as we heard a trap draw up outside, and dad evidently thought it might be Mr. Stryker or one of the other overseers. But it was in fact the veterinarian, who hadn't been on the plantation all that long as he'd qualified a couple of years ago, we all knew. I'd seen him around and he always stopped to talk to me and the other kids, and I guess that when we'd received treatment for minor injuries, and fevers, and such like I'd always wondered why it was him, and not the proper doctor, who had called at the house. Mom always said that it was because he was so nice and we didn't need to pay doctors' bills when we were so poor, but now I understood the real reason - he was "good enough" to treat slaves. Actually, it wasn't that bad - there was another TV programme I'd seen at Rob's that said that if you were young and fit but had a minor problem, you were better off going to a veterinarian as they dealt with so many minor injuries and illnesses amongst young, fit slaves that they were vastly more experienced than your average doctor.
"Good morning, blacksmith, Steve....", he said as he strode in, and even as we started to reply, he went on "Steve, go out and water my pony, will you? He's had quite a long run today..."
This was so typical of the veterinarian - I've told you everyone thought he was a nice guy, and to be concerned about his pony like that was the sort of thing he always did. I scooped a bucket of fresh water from the trough in the corner and went outside, and there he was - Sam. I'd spoken to him around the place several times, and as usual he broke into a big smile as he saw me. We couldn't shake hands or high five or anything like that, of course, as like all ponies he was manacled, his wrists fastened to the shafts. It's pretty silly, really, as no well-trained pony is going to run off or anything, is he? But it's one of those things that it seems that all pony owners do, and when I'd looked at traps in the showroom in town, they all come with the shackles kind of built in. The veterinarian also had that other indispensable thing for a pony driver - the long carriage whip standing there in its holster by the side of the driving seat - but I'd never seen the veterinarian use it. The pony didn't have a bit or anything in, as like most ponies used "domestically" he knew all the local routes and stuff, and could just be told verbally to go to the bank, or "home", or whatever without the need for elaborate guidance from his owner.
His skin was running with sweat, though, as it was quite a humid day, and he was really glad when I used a scrap of rag from the forge to wipe his brow and stop it running down into his eyes. Then I used a tin cup to scoop water up from the bucket and hold it to his mouth, and he slurped it down greedily. We started to chat, as we always had done when I'd seen him before, about this and that, and quite naturally, without even thinking about it, he began to piss as he stood there - I had to take a step back to stop it splashing my new boots! He saw me, grinned and said he was sorry - it's so easy to forget, he explained, as he was naked and shackled all day and it just seemed natural to piss when he wanted to, and he just didn't think. "Mind you", he added, "I was in the courtyard at the big house the other day and without thinking about it I just let go, and there was hell to pay! There was a big pool of my piss on the paving slabs as it couldn't soak away into the soil, like here, and the Colonel cane out with my owner and was furious, and my owner had to slash at me with the carriage whip, something he normally never does."
He was still smiling, so I guessed that this whipping had not been too bad, and he went on "You don't want to help a guy, do you, Steve? Like I asked you to last time? Man, my dick's aching.... If you just helped me out, I'd be easier for the rest of the day...."
This was a kind of running joke between us, as every time I'd seen him since the veterinarian arrived, he'd always asked me to jerk him off. "Hey, man, why didn't you do it in the stable this morning?", I therefore replied.
"I did, man! But that was four hours ago! Us stallions need to shoot a lot - you whiteys just don't understand what it's like for us nigga boys with big dicks.... Come on, Steve, help a guy out here - it won't take long...."
I laughed as usual, as I'd never taken him up on it, but he was kind of waggling his hips so that his big hard dick was shaking from side to side. "Oh, please, Steve", he begged in a comic accent, rolling his eyes "Look at my dick - if it has to wave around like this when I'm running...."
"...so get your owner to do it!", I laughed again, as we both knew that there was no way an owner would do stuff like that to his pony in public, whatever he might do in private.
Just then, though dad poked his head out of the door and told me to get back inside, and the veterinarian said quietly "OK, Steve, now this isn't going to hurt - really - and it won't take long. Just take your jeans off, and those boxers whose waistband I can see sticking out so alluringly."
I looked at him, and went to ask him why, but dad said "Steve, do as you're told!", so as the two men watched me I unlaced my boots and took them off, then slid down my jeans, followed by my boxer shorts, and stood there in my socks.
The veterinarian told me to go and sit up on the work bench that ran down one side of the forge, and I pulled myself up and felt the cold of the metal against my butt. He stood between my legs and took my dick in his hand, and 'skinned be back! Well, I suppose that's all right for a veterinarian to do, but then he opened his big black bag and took out callipers, a measuring tape, and a calculator. He started to pull my 'skin right forward, as far as it would go, and then used the callipers to transfer the length to the measuring tape, and keyed the results into the calculator. Then he measured from the tip of my dickhead to my body, and then I heard him say "And now, Steve, for the fun bit...."
He began to stroke my dick, at the same time tickling the underside of my balls! Well, as you might expect, I went erect and he again measured the length of me, and tried to pull my 'skin as far forward as it would now go, again using the callipers to assess the length.
He looked at dad, and said "This calculator's really useful - it takes a lot of the guess work out of it. Knowing the length of the 'skin, the flaccid and erect dick, and so on, I just press the button and it tells me exactly how much to cut off. People don't realise", he went on, "But when you 'skin babies it doesn't much matter about these things as they kind of adjust as the kid's body grows up. But for a mature male it's different - you really need to know how much to cut: too little, and the slave won't have 'the look'; too much, and the dick won't go properly erect. But none of those problems for Steve here - the colonel has said that he's to have a 'high and tight' so that his dick hangs free when he's not erect, and is just nicely stretched at erection. This scientific way really does take the guesswork out of it.... So we may as well begin."
"No...", I started to say.
"Steve, shut up!", dad snapped. "Son, you're a slave, remember? All slaves are 'skinned - you know that! Have you ever seen any of the niggas around here with a 'skin? And the Colonel has ordered it, now you're a man."
".... and it won't hurt a bit, Steve", the veterinarian added. "I did all the courses at training college, but since I've been here I've had so much practical experience - the Colonel tends to buy criminals and illegal immigrants and the like, so a lot of the niggas have their 'skins when they arrive and there's no substitute for experience in things like this. So we'll have you neat and trimmed in a coupe of minutes... Now, hold still..."
He got a hypodermic out of his bag, fitted a needle, then plunged it into me, at the base of my dick. "There - now let's just wait whilst that takes effect - I was trained to do it with the slave strapped down and then there's a whole lot of screaming, but this way's easier - you won't feel a thing, Steve. But you must sit still, absolutely still, as I'll be using one-cut scalpel and these things are incredibly sharp:
one move from you and it could as easily slice through your dick as through your 'skin!"
Well, he was right. I didn't feel anything, as my dick was totally numb. He sliced down on the underside of my dick - the blood starting to drip out quite quickly - to free my 'skin from where it was attached to the head, then slid a metal cylinder over the end of my dick, pulling my 'skin up over it, then neatly sliced around the circumference! The cylinder had little grooves cut in it to help guide the scalpel, and it was over in an instant. He used a little gadget then to put in a line of what looked like tiny staples all around the cut ends of the remaining 'skin to close off the inner and outer surfaces, brusquely swabbed the whole area some sort of liquid - which stung as it went on, actually, ten slapped a long plaster on.
"Right, Steve. Now, no jerking off for at least three days. No fucking for a week. These things holding your 'skin together mostly stop the bleeding, and will fall out themselves in a couple of days - fantastic new technology, isn't it? Specially developed for this. You'll feel some pain when the anaesthetic wears off, but I'll leave you a couple of aspirin, and that's really all you need. If it's still bleeding tomorrow, make sure I get to hear about it as it shouldn't be. And that's it. Do you want the 'skin as a souvenir? You can dry y it...."
"No...", I managed to say, and as he was cleaning his instruments, the veterinarian just tossed the tiny flap of skin he'd cut off onto the forge, where I saw it sizzle, blacken, and be consumed. "Right, old chap - just one more thing", he added. I can see you're really white as your butt hasn't been in the sun - but if the Colonel does decide to have you tanned all over, remember that this new skin that's exposed on your dick is especially sensitive - it's always been the inside layer, after all, and now it's on top. So lots of sun screen, OK?"
I sat there, almost in shock. "Steve, the veterinarian asked you a question! I won't have a son of mine being disrespectful, boy!"
"Yes, sir, I understand", I said to the veterinarian, but it was hard not to sound sullen, as I didn't think he ought to have done that to me. I mean, some parents have their kids 'skinned at birth, and there's not much you can do about it as you grow up, is there?
But I was a man, fully grown, and that's the kind of decision I ought to have been able to make for myself.
But then, I was a slave, and it was starting to come home to me just how much of a change in my life that really was.
The veterinarian snapped his bag shut and left, and dad watched as I gingerly pulled my boxers on - it didn't hurt, actually, and then my jeans. We started to work again, in silence, but then dad said "Steve, it's no use being like this! I heard that tone in your voice when you spoke to the veterinarian. Now, snap out of it!"
"But dad, I've been 'skinned. It's not right, dad...."
"How do you think I felt, son? It happened to me too, you know! But I was twenty when I was done. You'll get used to it! It's not so long ago, you know, that almost all Americans were 'skinned as kids.... Still, what you've never had, you don't miss, I suppose. But you've got no choice, Steve - all the Colonel's niggas are 'skinned, and he likes to see your dick head when you're serving him naked. So that's it - he owns us, remember, and what he says goes. And being sullen and upset about it won't do you any good - all it will earn you, later in life, is a whole lot of trouble. Whatever your owner tells you to do, just do it, and look cheerful about it - it's a proven fact that happy slaves get whipped a lot less often that miserable ones, even if the two slaves have committed the same offence."
Well, I could see that, I suppose, but it's not easy.
And what was all this about serving the colonel naked? I wanted to ask dad, but he was really working hard. Still, I did try to work with dad willingly for the rest of the morning, and when mom brought our lunch over, I tried to look cheerful for her sake, as I didn't want her to see I was upset. We're lucky, actually, as most slaves, and certainly the niggas in their coffles in the fields, get fed only twice a day - in the morning, and at night. In the exceptionally hot summer weather they might be allowed to rest in the shade for an hour or so, but otherwise they just worked on all day. But because we were doing very hard manual labour - and not because we were soft whiteys, which is what some of the niggas allege - we were allowed to stop at lunchtime and eat. Mom had made some of the grits stuff very thick, and then fried it so that it was in nice crisp bars, and dad, mom and me sat together for a moment, eating it. Mom seemed really pleased to see dad and me together like that, and said that she was so relieved that the Colonel had decided to have me work in the forge as she'd always imagined that we I'd be sold as soon as I was old enough, and she'd never see me again. But now, well, if I worked hard, and supported dad.... "Oh yes", I thought., "And if I have the Colonel's dick up my ass, just as dad has to." But I didn't day it, as it's not the sort of thing you can say to your mom, is it?
It's funny, isn't it? Although I was feeling a bit miserable but was coming out of it at lunchtime, you've got no way of knowing what else is going to happen to you. And if I'd known how I was going to be that evening, I might well have "run", in spite of everything dad had said!
Half way through the afternoon we heard another trap draw up, and this sounded quite different from the veterinarian's! It was a lot faster, and it stopped a lot quicker, and Mr. Stryker came in. "Attend to my pony, boy!", he snapped at me, and I went outside with the water bucket again. This poor guy was nothing like the veterinarian's happy pony, though! For one thing, he was much bigger - at least six-six, with really long, legs, and his skin was jet black, coal black, the kind of black that most of our niggas weren't (we call them blacks, but actually they're mostly pretty dark brown of course, because of all that interbreeding that went on between the slaves and owners the first time around when slaves were first introduced. But this guy must have been a direct import from Africa, he was so black. He was manacled to Mr. Stryker's trap, as you'd expect, but Mr. Stryker obviously liked to be a "hands on" driver as in addition to his heavy iron collar the pony wore a leather strap around his head, holding blinkers in place so he could only see to the front. He had a bit in his mouth, and I could tell from the way it was pulled so far back into the corners of his lips that he must have had teeth pulled to get it there - and because his jaw was half open, there were two slicks of his drool hanging down from the corners of his mouth. The bit was held in place by straps around his head and under his chin so he couldn't push it out with his tongue, and the strap underneath was attached to his collar with another short strap, so holding his head down and making it impossible for him to toss it back, or even look up.
He was covered in sweat as he'd been run really hard, and it was not only running down his totally shaved body, but making almost a little rivulet where it went along his dick, so it seemed as if he was continually leaking piss! I could hear the flies buzzing, and that was because his shoulders, and his butt, were covered with a fine mesh of bleeding lines, where Mr. Stryker had evidently been using the carriage whip on him. I spooned water as best I could into his mouth - he had to bend slightly at the knees so that I could reach - although it was awkward with the bit there, and further complicated by the tongue depressor attached to it that kept his tongue right on the floor of his mouth. I could only guess at how much he wanted as he was quite incapable of telling me as he could make no intelligible sounds, but I gave him a break, knowing that too much water at one time can be bad for you however much you may feel you need it after hard exercise, and tried to do something about his back. I used the scrap of rag to try to wash away the blood, and thus get rid of the flies, and as I ran it over him, he gave shudders and moans, as if he was really hurting. This was the ultimate in slavery, I thought - they made dad and me strip and fuck, the niggas on the plantation were made to go naked and collared all the time and were chained into coffles, but this poor guy had been reduced to the status of a mere beast. No, worse than that, as even when men ride real horses they have some freedom, but this poor slave was blinkered, couldn't raise his head, had been deprived of the power of speech, and was clearly constantly whipped in order to make him "go faster". Thank goodness I was a whitey, and couldn't be used like this, I thought.
I was still helping the pony to drink - the spilling water from his half-open mouth cascading down his magnificent torso - when dad called me back into the forge. He looked worried, and those veins were standing out on his forehead as they do when you're really annoyed but unable to do anything about it. He looked at me and said quietly, though, as if he didn't want to worry me, "Strip again, Steve."
Well, I thought at first that Mr. Stryker might just want to inspect my 'skinning, but once I was naked dad led me over to the big solid anvil that was standing there and told me to lie on it - the metal was icy cold against my chest, and dad positioned me so that the "horn" of it, where he shaped the horse shoes, was sticking out from between my thighs. I hated my legs and ass being forced apart like this, and wondered if they were going to attach my hole again. But I began to realise what was going to happen as dad got out the straps and fastened them around the anvil and my body, so I was held there rigidly. Us kids were never allowed in the forge when new niggas were brought in for branding, but I'd peeked in through a knot hole often enough to be able to see them strapped down like this, and I knew what was going to happen to me.
I wanted to shout out, to protest, to beg dad to stop, but I knew it was no good. He'd clearly been trying to argue with Mr. Stryker, risking punishment for himself; and perhaps I realised that once a master has said "no" to a slave, that's going to stick - I mean, a master isn't going to back down, is he? If I pleaded with dad, and he went on at Mr. Stryker again, who knows what might happen. It was as if the whole thing had a sick inevitability about it - sixteenth birthday, ritual fucking by my owner, 'skinning, and now this.
Mr Stryker advanced on me and I felt his long bony fingers stroking over the surface of my left butt. "No need to shave your son, blacksmith", he told dad. "He's got some faint hair here, but not enough to set on fire. Now, I want a really nice, crisp brand - so make sure the iron's hot enough, but not so hot that it sets his fat alight and damages him. And I warn you, blacksmith - hold it there for the right time, so it goes in deep, and don't hold back just because he's your son. I've seen you do lots of niggas in here and I know you know how to do it, so any failure and you'll be in severe trouble."
"Yes, sir", dad said with that same air of resignation that I was feeling. He came over to me and gave me something - my arms were free, and it was only just my body that was strapped down. It was a cylinder of hard, black rubber, about nine inches long. "Bite down on this, Steve - it will help. Well, not as such, but it will stop you biting your tongue off, and it will stifle the worst of the noise - we don't want to alarm your mother." I took the heavy, almost solid thing off him, and saw the impressions of the teeth in it from the hundreds of other slaves who must have been strapped here as I now was. "Be brave, son - it will soon be over", dad almost whispered, as if he didn't want Mr. Stryker to hear.
He got on with the rest of the preparations - a few handsful of straw were scattered underneath the anvil, and dad then took the branding iron - about a metre long, with the big "S" at the end of it, and plunged it into the coals, turning the handle to make the fan turn them almost white with incandescence. I gripped down on the rubber bar in my mouth, and my saliva started to drool from one corner, but I couldn't move it as out of the corner of my eye I saw dad advancing towards me. I felt the heat of the thing against my bare skin the moment before the agony of the pain went through me, and then it was as if there was a series of snapshots - the smell of my skin charring, the sight of dad's face so grim as he held the thing against my butt, the frantic scrabbling of my feet and hands as they tried to do anything to get free, the look of excitement on Mr. Stryker's face as the brand seared into me, the sound of my own muffled wailing and screaming, and then nothing.
Mercifully, as can happen when pain gets so bad, I passed out. The next thing I knew , dad was undoing the straps and trying to help me to my feet, slapping my face and saying "Steve, Steve..." The pain struck me again then, rolling over me like the ocean, and I was powerless to do anything about it. It consumed all my thoughts, all my feelings. I remember looking down and seeing a pile of crap and piss in the straw, and dad saying "Don't worry, Steve, it happens to all the slaves when the iron bites - their bowels just let go", but I was beyond, way beyond, embarrassment.
Mr. Stryker stood there then looked closely at my butt. "Excellent, blacksmith. The way those blisters are forming already I think you've done a good job. Allow the boy to rest for the remainder of the day - I don't think we can get any sensible work out of him", and with that, turned and walked out, and we heard the cracking of the whip as the trap rolled away. Quick as a flash dad dived down under the workbench and pulled out a jar of the ointment mom used, as she had to soothe the cane stroke last night, and began to wipe it over my butt - I screamed again, as this hurt, but dad told me to hang in there, as it would start to take the pain away soon. Which it did; well, about half of it: but even that half was all consuming, terrible, and utterly inhumane.
"Why can't I have an injection, like when the veterinarian 'skinned me?", I managed to ask, and dad just shrugged. "They never do, Steve. I have heard it said that they want all new slaves to remember the moment they finally turned form men into slaves - with a brand like that on you, you know the power that your owner has over you, and you'll never forget it. Still, at least you've got somewhere to go, somewhere quiet - imagine those poor niggas when I do ten or twenty of them, and then they all have to thrash around in a cage altogether."
With that, dad opened the door of the little store room just beyond the hearth, and I could see that he must have known about what was going to happen for some time. We used to play in there when I was younger and it was a real junk yard and last resting place for odd lengths of metal, chain, fancy collars, broken tools, and all the other junk that accumulates around a forge. But it had been cleared out, and half the narrow space had a good covering of straw on it, with a blanked spread out across the straw, and another piled neatly on top.
"This is your room now, Steve. You're a man, too old to be still living at home with us, and this is a place of your own. You can still come in to the house for meals and mom will still do your laundry, but this is where you sleep and hang out. Mr. Stryker was going to send you to sleep with the niggas, but I persuaded him that it was best you stay here - you can get up early to light the forge, and we can get through more work."
I looked at the rough blanket and lay down on it, very gently so as not to hurt my dick, and dad brought me a cup of water and the two aspirin the veterinarian had left me for the pain from the 'skinning. "Here, take these now - they might help", he said, and then gently, very gently, pulled the other blanket over my naked shoulders and as much of my thighs and legs as he could without touching the brand. I lay there, my head cradled in my arms, and if I had not been beyond tears, I would have been sobbing.
Really I wish dad had just let me sleep - at least I wasn't aware of the pain then. But he shook me awake, and as I lay there moaning said gently "Time to get up, son. Mom's almost got the dinner ready."
"No, I don't want to eat..."
"You must, son. You've got to keep your strength up. And, anyway, we don't want to worry the little ones as you know we always eat together. Come on, you've got to do the right thing...."
It was absolute agony easing the boxer shorts on, even though dad tenderly slathered more of the ointment across my brand, and the jeans were even worse. Dad knelt down and pulled my boots on for me, and laced them shut, as I don't think I could bend. We both pulled our Ts on then as if it was the end of an normal day, and walked slowly, very slowly, around to the house.
Mom almost cried out when she saw my strained, tear-stained face, but told me to go and wash up. "It will pass, Steve", she said. "The pain will go away. You'll survive, son."
"Mom, you can't know what it feels like..."
"Oh yes I can, Steve! Remember, I'm a slave, too."
I stood there in astonishment. I mean, I know they'd seared an "S" into dad's butt as they had into mine, but it just hadn't occurred to me that they'd do female slaves too.
I don't remember what excuse they used for why I stayed standing as I forked down the vegetable stew from our garden that mom made to garnish the grits stuff, but afterwards dad gave me a cup of coffee, I thought Cliff look jealous. And when dad said I should go and turn in now, and Cliff learned that I had my "own place", he started to say how unfair it was, that as the eldest I always got the best of everything, and all that other crap that younger brothers always think. If only he knew!
End Of part 4