This is a new story of mine, which I hope you'll publish in gay/male/authoritarian as you do my other works. This is NOT part of the "Spoils of War" saga, but entirely separate. I'm sending it to you now as I don't want to lag in posting it fro mwhere I am in writing it, by very much. And if I wait for the last four parts of Spoils Of War to getposted, I'll neve catch up with this one! Hope that's OK with you.... Pete
THE LABOURER by Pete Brown. petebrownuk @ yahoo.com
Read all of Pete's stories in groups.yahoo.com/group/petebrownseroticstories
I was inspired to write this story after I had re-read the stories "Wiseman" and, in particular, "Wiseman II" by Sam Black.
Part 1
In my nice comfortable small town, it was expected that you'd go to college after High School, and my mom and dad had always prudently saved into a college fund for me. So when I told them that I didn't want to, that I had no intention of sitting in an office all day like dad, there were major rows. Not only did mom and dad fear that I'd end up destitute as increasingly, dad told me, there would only be jobs for the well educated. But when they went out to their friends for dinner, or at the church socials, all their friends would be talking about how their sons and daughters were doing a college, and they would feel ashamed.
So why didn't I just do what all my buddies were doing? I was never going to go to one of the major league places, for sure, but my grades would make it easy for me to go to one of the State colleges. And as they all said, I'd have a lot of fun there - I was a bit of a jock at High School, in the football team and doing well at track and field, and there would be lots of opportunities to carry on playing at college. And the girls really go for guys on the college teams, they pointed out - "you've pretty much fucked your way around all the talent in the town, and there's a whole lot of new pussy out there, just ready for the taking...."
Well they were right, I suppose. Ever since I lost my virginity at fourteen I'd been screwing around. I'd never really had a serious girl friend, just a whole lot of short, casual affairs - I won't say relationships - as a guy needs to get his rocks off, doesn't he? But I really wasn't interested in being "friends" with these girls, or spending all the time they seemed to need to chat them up, talk to them, spend time with them: my dick was usually raging, and all I wanted to do was fuck. And if they didn't open up their legs for me, or at the very least blow me, then I just wasn't interested.
Mom and dad continued to rant at me as Graduation approached and I carried on refusing to even think about college admission, and in the end I decided to quit home - even though I knew I'd then have to do all my own laundry, and get all my own food, it was a whole lot better than the incessant nag, nag, nag that I was experiencing. It was a pretty grungey sort of place I found, on the "wrong side of town", but it was cheap - and what does a guy really need? Just one room with a shower off it, with a bed, a couch, a sink and cooker in one corner, and room for my TV and stereo! But it was cheap, and I was my own man - if I wanted to pick up some woman and bring her back and screw the eyeballs out of her, I could - no fumbling around in the living room, always wondering if mom or dad might peek over the banisters to "see if everything was all right", as they said. And it wasn't difficult to get a job, either: sure it didn't pay much, labouring doesn't, but there was enough to pay the rent, make the payments on my bike, for enough Mexican and pizza to feed me in the evenings and breakfasts at fast food joints, and for beers with my buddies.
I met a nice crowd of guys labouring for my employer, a big landscape contractor in the area. There was a lot of new home building going on, so there was always more than enough work to do that needed sheer brawn and muscle - in those small suburban yards you can't get in big mechanical diggers and stuff, it all has to be done by hand. Most of the guys were like me - just looking for an undemanding job where we could use our muscle, make enough to pay the rent so we had no worries, and have plenty of free time for fun. There were some bonuses, too - all those lonely bored housewives in their nice neat little boxes were panting for it - their husbands came home late and exhausted, and so worried about work that they couldn't get it up; so when a good looking guy with a toned body was working around the place they couldn't help but watch and for their juices to begin to run. Sooner or later they'd be out in the yard offering a glass of lemonade or a cup of coffee, and it was easy to play them along and take twenty minutes out for a satisfying fuck. I played the field to the full - I've got those kind of rugged good looks that women seem to like, and I always wore really tight Jeans that emphasised my butt and thighs - I read in one of those women's magazines in the dentist's waiting room that the feature women really like in a man is a nice firm, tight ass, so I always made sure that my Jeans stretched tautly over mine. And, of course, given the slightest opportunity when the sun peaked through, I'd strip off first my sweat shirt, so they could see my torso straining through my T, and then as I worked on and that got a lovely patch of sweat right down the back and front, I'd pull it off too. I always made sure that they were watching me as I pulled the hem of my T up and then over my head - a woman doesn't want to be seen to be admiring a guy, but if you give them the opportunity to take a close look at you when they think they can't see you because your T is covering your face, I can guarantee that they will take a long, hard look! And once they'd seen my nicely muscled pecs with my big dark tits, the light dusting of black hair on my chest and the treasure trail leading down over my six pack to disappear into the waistband of my jeans, then they were hooked!
Life was pretty good, I have to say. I really had no worries at all. I didn't need all that much to live on, and my wages more than adequately covered it. And if I was a bit short occasionally, say if I was saving for a new bike, then it was always easy to pick up jobs on the side - we'd be working on some yard, and the husband might sidle up and ask if I was willing to drop by at the weekend and do some extra work - lay a bit more paving, dig over the flower border, that kind of stuff. Most of these guys just didn't like doing anything physical, and they'd rather pay me to do it than pay my employers, who'd add in their profit, and would have to add in sales tax and stuff like that, whereas I was "cash in the hand" and cheaper. It was good for me, too - it kept me working at weekends so that I didn't have to spend money, it was another opportunity to keep my body healthy and trim, and of course the IRS knew nothing about it, so all the money was mine.
I did sometimes wonder whether some of those husbands really asked me to do stuff because they liked my body as much as their wives did! All these executive types in their thirties and forties would be rushing around offering me a beer, helping me carry my tools and all that sort of stuff. And sometimes, of course, they just sat on the deck pretending to read the weekend papers, but peeking over the top of them to observe me as I worked away. But no way was I going to get mixed up in that sort of stuff - well, I mean, a dick is for pussy, isn't it? I wouldn't want it up some guy's ass! And my ass was tight and virgin, and it was going to stay that way. Mind you I did wonder sometimes what it would be like to let some of these guys blow me - how different could it be, after all, to have a guy's mouth around your dick rather than some woman's? And I suppose fucking a guy's ass wouldn't be all that much different from a woman's, either: I occasionally did that to some of the bitches if they kept on and on at me to fuck them again, when I wasn't in the mood.
Even though I had this great healthy job, I still wanted more. Somehow at the end of the day I wouldn't be tired enough, no matter how hard I'd worked. I had a really good reputation with my employers for hard work, and they knew that they could send me to a client without the need for a foreman or anything - they'd tell me it was a couple of days' work or something, and they knew I would really labour away at it, without slacking, and would often finish earlier. I enjoyed using my body, I liked that feeling of complete exhaustion that can sweep over you when you've been really stretching your abilities, So if I finished early on the last day, as I usually did as my work rate was so high, I felt dissatisfied and frustrated as I lay on the couch watching TV and just jerking off. Well, sure, of course I still jerked off - I didn't get pussy more than three or four times a week, and that isn't enough to keep a young guy sane, is it?
The solution of course was to join a gym, but most of those are designed for posers who just want to prance around in their designer workout clothes - there's hardly a real man with a proper body amongst them. Or, conversely, there are those dreadful over-muscled gym bunnies, who spend hours and hours working away at their abs, or pecs, or something, and end up like over muscled pieces of beef. My body was muscled, but lean and trim, as you can only get from really working, using the whole body, in all kinds of subtle ways, all the time. The other problem, of course, is that these gyms are really expensive - most of the posers are there on corporate memberships from their employers, so they can jack up the fees as high as they like, and I knew the real value of money: I could directly translate a monthly gym fee into the number of hours I'd have to slog away working on some construction project or other. I'd basically decided I wasn't going to spend the money, and worked out some of my frustration by jogging - no, that gives you the wrong idea of middle aged fat guys parading around the park at not much more than a fast walk! I didn't jog, I ran, and ran hard, and fast, and for long distances. I'd get back to my place absolutely soaked in sweat, then as the endorphin high persisted, I'd loll there on my couch and jerk off - it's good to do it like that, isn't it? You can afford to allow your cum to spray all over your body and there's no need to catch it in toilet tissue or anything, as you're going to leap into the shower soon anyway.
I was a bit surprised one weekend when I had been toiling away re-laying a paved area around a fancy barbecue for some dude when he brought me out a beer, then as I swallowed it down as I'd been sweating a lot in the hot sun, he sat and talked to me about working out. I told him I didn't, as I couldn't afford the gym fees, but that I'd like to occasionally - I mean, it's OK to go running when it's dry, but it can be pretty miserable when there's a storm, and in our neck of the woods they can be really fierce! And, of course, when I couldn't run, I was often laid off from work as well, making me really frustrated as my body craved hard work. And there's only so many press-ups, trunk curls, jumping jacks, and all that other kind of shit that you can do in a small apartment without any equipment. So I told him I was vaguely interested, and he went on to say that there was a group of local businessmen who would pay to subsidise gym memberships for guys like me.
"Why?", I asked, not unnaturally.
"Oh, you know, we like to see the gym used properly. And guys like you are easy on the eyes..."
"Hey, I'm no fag!"
"Oh, don't get me wrong - we just like to look! There's something special about seeing fit young guys like you working out really hard - it's no more 'fag' than watching the athletes at the Olympic Games, or something like that! All those millions of viewers tune in to see the gymnasts and the track and field, all those fit, muscled bodies working away - the whole audience cant be 'fag', can it? Well, my colleagues and I are like that: we're tired of going down to the gym and seeing a whole load of paunchy guys prancing around - we want to see some real action, smell some real sweat..... Think of it like a scholarship to College that someone pays for to get clever but poor kids to be able to go: we pay most of the gym fees of nice fit guys who can't ante up all the money."
Well, I still wasn't sure. But it sounded at least plausible. And I can take care of myself - if there was any funny business, I'd soon be out of there, leaving some busted heads behind. But the next Saturday, as I had no little "job on the side", I went down to this swanky place to see what it was like. Some of the members really looked at me as I roared in to the parking on my bike - as they locked their BMW's I wasn't sure whether they were looking at me angrily for coming there in my leathers, or whether they were jealous of my youth, and the freedom I had to burn along on my bike rather than being stuck inside an air-conditioned car. The receptionists gave me a nice smile, though, and I marked them down as potential dick fodder once I'd had time to make myself known. They seemed to be expecting me, and in exchange for a really small monthly fee, I was soon equipped with a membership card and a locker key.
It was a kind of odd place, really - all those really high-tech machines for working out on. But the thing that was a real joy for me was the fact that they had a huge pool - I've always enjoyed swimming, and I'm really good at it. I'd kind of heard about it, and so I'd come prepared, with my Speedos in my gym bag. No, it wasn't so much the facilities that were odd, but some of the other guys: in the locker room they almost hid themselves as they changed, and as they walked from the lockers to the showers after exercising, they wrapped towels around their bodies as if they were ashamed of them - and the showers weren't the proper communal ones, either, as I'd been used to at school, but those stupid little individual cubicles that you have at home. I'd always thought that part of the fun of working out was that you could talk to the other guys in the showers, as you let the hot water cascade over you, relaxing you after your hard work.
It was good, though, actually - I did some weights work, noticing that I was the only guy there in an old worn T and cheap shorts, whereas everyone else was in fancy track suits and workout wear with big names on it. Then I stripped off and pulled on my Speedos, and spent an hour thrashing up and down the pool at really high speed - it was really well organised, and they had lanes earmarked for those who wanted to swim slowly, the medium paced people, and the racers, like me! I was totally exhausted at the end of it, and almost without thinking stripped off my Speedos, flicked my dick to free it from my balls where it had been stuck by the tight fabric, and strode off towards the showers. It's funny, isn't it - you feel your dick bobbing up and down if you walk fast: I suppose you don't really get a chance to walk very far when you are in the privacy of your own home which is the only other time you're really naked, and so it kind of comes to your attention. And three were lots of pairs of eyes on me as I strode the length of the locker room towards the showers. I'd only bought a small towel with me, too - so there didn't seem much point in attempting to wrap it around me when I'd finished - I just stood there and roughly towelled off (not very hard to do, as I keep my hair really short as I hate it flopping all over my eyes when I'm working,) then went back to pull on my leathers and go home.
After I'd been there two or three times I realised there were some other guys like me, and I got to talk to them as we changed. It became clear that these "businessmen" paid for about ten of us to be members at the really cheap rate, and we all laughed about it as it seemed somehow vaguely erotic to know that we were only there to be looked at! I mean, you don't really display yourself to other guys, do you? I wore tight jeans and skimpy Ts when I was working as they were cheap, easy to dump in the washer, and attracted the women. But the idea of pulling on gym clothes, and Speedos, so that men could ogle my body seemed gross, somehow. Or was it? I mean, it wasn't as if it was harming us; we didn't have to do anything for it, just be "natural" (and the more "natural", the better, I suppose). We all agreed though that it was a small price to pay for the convenience of being able to use the gym and pool, and so we laughed amongst ourselves at the older guys who were desperately trying to keep the flab for completely taking over their bodies. I did wonder, though, how prostitutes went about their work, knowing their bodies were not only going to be looked at, but actually fucked; and the thought of a guy paying to use my body actually made me feel physically sick.
Exercise is a bit like a drug, though. Them more of it you do, the more of it you want to do, need to do, almost. It didn't seem to matter how hard I drove my body when I was working, how many extra jobs I did on the weekends, and how many hours I went down to the gym, it never seemed to be quite enough. Somehow I always wanted more, there seemed to be limits that I could never quite reach as I didn't have the time - or, rather, I didn't have the will. Look, don't get me wrong, I was perfectly capable of driving myself really hard, and when I was at work, or in the pool, no one worked harder than me. But I was perhaps vaguely conscious of not really "pushing the envelope", of "going the extra mile", or whatever. I suppose that's why, conventionally, you have workout buddies: two guys working out together will always compete, even if they're really close buddies. You just can't help it, can you? That's what men do, naturally, as millions of years of evolution have bred into us. And when you're competing with another guy, you do give it that extra ten percent, you do push just that bit harder, you do force yourself to do things that you really thought you couldn't. I didn't have the option of a buddy like that, though: with working late, and on the weekends and whatever, I never knew when I was going to the gym, and anyway, I most often went there in the middle of the day when there was a storm or something, and most other guys were in the office. Even when there were some of the other "special" guys there as well as me, we still couldn't really buddy up, as I was by far the strongest and most agile - sure, I've got in-built advantages as my six-six frame gets me off to a good start, but on top of that, my job and my workouts had already made me the fittest of us all, so "competing" was hard.
I suppose I'd had these vague feelings of dissatisfaction for a long time, but life was anyway OK. I never had to worry about money really as my needs were simple, it wasn't arduous living alone (well, I guess some folk would think the dust around the place was a bit gross, but I always took out the trash so there weren't piles of pizza cartons and beer cans around the place), I just tossed my stuff into the washer once a week and didn't bother with ironing and stuff, and, as I've told you, there were lots of opportunities for warm, fresh pussy. Mom and dad had almost become reconciled to my way of life, too - they still fretted that I was "wasting my life", especially as after a few years all their friends' kids returned from college, got good jobs, and started to get married and buy homes. But we were kind of rubbing along, with mom asking me to eat about once a week (which I often turned down, as I'd rather work, or go to the gym, or something). Somehow the years slipped by as I led my no stress, comfortable life, that suited me like a comfortable old sweat shirt..
I'd never really been interested in politics and stuff like that - just keep your head down, work hard, stay afloat, and have a good time, that was my motto. But when we met, mom and dad were always going on about this and that - the tighter border controls to stop the Mexicans flooding in, the tightening of the social security system so that illegals couldn't work, and what they said was the threat to our liberties as it became almost impossible to go anywhere or do anything without a credit card and a driver's licence. And when the government said they were going to empty the prisons and "really make the criminals pay" by introducing indentured service, they were almost apoplectic. "It's just like slavery", my dad fumed, shaking the paper where he'd just read another editorial denouncing the new scheme. "You get sentenced, and then you have to work for your employer, with no choice - well, not after he's bought your contract at the government auction, that is."
"But dad, surely it will deter criminals from breaking the law - if you're going to become an indentured servant, rather than just lolling around idly in jail, don't you think some folks will get proper jobs and not live as parasites on the rest of us? And the prisons do cost a lot to maintain and run, and they say the indentured servant system will be completely cost free to the taxpayer - the money that employers have to pay the state for the contracts will actually turn in a profit. It sounds good to me..."
"Steve, think about it! It's just like slavery! When the early settlers came here from Europe, there were indentured servants, and they were treated just like slaves - they couldn't move around, had to live on their employers' places, couldn't marry without his permission...."
"Oh come on, dad - an indentured servant couldn't be whipped, not like some of those plantation owners did to the slaves they imported from Africa."
"Yes they could, son! And buried in the small print of the indentured servants legislation there's much the same thing - if an indentured servant doesn't work properly these days, his contract owner can employ 'physical sanctions', as they put it. I expect we'll see public whipping posts appearing in the town square any day now!", he snorted angrily, and screwed up the paper and threw it on the ground. Dad was always one to over-exaggerate to make his point, and I thought it was a bit of a joke.
Well, as I said, I wasn't all that interested in politics and stuff, and this indentured servant thing didn't affect me as I never broke the law anyway. I even thought it was a pretty good idea, as even on my low wages as a labourer I found myself paying huge amounts of federal and state tax, and social security.... If those idle fucking prisoners started to work and make money, it seemed to be a good thing, to me.
I was twenty four when matters really came to a head. I was still living the life I chose, and mom and dad had changed their badgering of me from "get a proper job", to "find a nice girl and settle down as we'd like grandchildren". Well I hadn't done the first, and I had no plans to do the second, as there was enough pussy out there for the taking without needing to tie myself down to have to earn money to pay for some idle bitch and a band of whining kids! My feelings of general dissatisfaction with my body were still high, even though by normal standards I was like a Greek god. One night, after I'd been working really late and there wasn't really time to go to the gym, I was nursing a beer in a bar around the corner form my tiny apartment. Also at the bar was a well set-up guy who I judged to be in his early forties, who seemed to be in reasonable shape, unlike so many guys of his age. He was casually, but not flamboyantly, dressed, with clothes that seemed to be expensive but which didn't scream out with designer labels. Somehow he made me feel a bit inadequate - I was in my tight jeans and a T as usual, and I was conscious that the smell of my dried sweat, from where I had been working, was drifting towards him.
I sucked thirstily at my beer, and as you do in bars late at night, we struck up a conversation. "Been working hard, then?", he enquired as an opening.
"Yes.... Sorry about the stink". I smiled faintly at him, indicating my sweaty pits. "I was really late on the site, and I stopped in for a drink on my way home - I'm only on the next block. It's not bothering you, is it?"
"Hell, no. I like a man to be like a man. Can't stand those guys drenched in fancy cologne and stuff. A man should smell like a man. So what are you working at - it's late, isn't it?"
"Oh, construction. I just labour. And we wanted to get clear of the site tonight, so we all stayed on to finish up rather than having to go back tomorrow."
"Well, it seems to do you good - you don't see a lot of young guys in good shape, like you...."
Oh shit, I thought. This is another fag trying to pick me up. That's one of the problems of having strong masculine features, and a big, hard body - guys in bars seem to think that you smut be some sort of male hooker or something if you just go in for a drink by yourself. I've never had a particular problem with it, I'm not one of those guys who explodes in anger if someone tries to proposition them. Not that I've ever wanted to go with a guy, of course, but somehow it's a bit flattering to have another guy admire you to the extent that they want to see even more of your body, isn't it? Still, it does get a bit boring, and I often wished that I could just have a normal conversation about football, or something.
"So, in construction... It must be getting tough."
"Why?"
"Well, all the indentured servants... Aren't they doing jobs like that? Isn't it hard to find work like that, when an employer can buy an indentured servant's contract and use them for a lot less than they'll have to pay you in wages?"
"I guess it's because they don't pay me very much anyway! I think they'd have a problem competing against the pittance they pay me. But then, I knew that when I decided not to go to college...."
"So why didn't you go to college, if you could have?"
Well, I told him a bit of my life, as you do sometimes to complete strangers. It can be easier to talk to a guy in a bar, or on a plane, or something, than it can be to talk to your buddies sometimes, can't it? We laughed about my parents' disappointment about my not going to college, and he said that a lot of folk would be pleased when the college fund was freed-up. We had a couple more beers, then as the alcohol warmed my belly and I relaxed, as you do, I got to talking about work, and the gym, and stuff, and I told him about my almost unbearable urge to use my body, to test it, to push the limits. And then, after another beer, I told him how frustrated I was that I couldn't make myself go to the real limit, to break through the barrier. "Still", I continued, "there aren't that many guys of my age with a body like mine, so I suppose I shouldn't grumble. It feels good sometimes to know that it's only me who can work that hard, only me who can turn out as much solid work as I do."
He laughed, genially. "Oh Steve, you are really fooling your self. I have lots of guys working for me who probably turn out just as much work as you do."
"No, come on! I know, from looking around on the site, that there aren't any guys who work as hard as I do."
"That's because you probably don't work alongside indentured servants. The ones whose contracts I own would out perform you easily, I'll bet."
"You work indentured servants?"
"Sure. Rooney's Contracts, that's me. Mike Rooney, sole proprietor. I used to be an ordinary contractor, but when they brought in the indentured servants, I decided I could make more money from buying their contracts, and then really working them hard. Look, I don't want to belittle your attitude to work, but most labourers don't work away solidly: they stop for breaks, rest on their shovels every few minutes, stand around watch as a truck backs in that they've got to unload, and all that kind of stuff. My guys never stop - from the moment they arrive in the morning until they're taken away at night, they never stop. Not ever. My overseers see to that. No rest breaks, no leaning on the shovels, no watching deliveries... Just pure, not-stop hard work."
"Aw, come on! No one works like that. And if you're not paying them, your social servants will be even less likely to drive themselves into the ground. At least I keep at it because I don't want to get fired... And there's a small performance bonus, too."
He laughed again. "You really don't understand, do you? It doesn't matter how willing you are, how much you say you work hard, how worried you are about being fired, how much you need that bonus - there's something holding you back, always. It's your brain, and it's built in, and there's nothing you can do about it by yourself - your brain is constantly monitoring your body, and it's always concerned that you will run out of energy totally. So it always keeps something back, holds something in reserve."
"You're kidding, right?"
"No, Steve. Think about it - back in primeval times when it was you against the sabre-toothed tiger, or whatever, you never knew when something might start to hunt you, rather than you hunt it. So you wouldn't want to run your body's energy reserves right down, would you? As a hunter you'd be tempted to keep going: 'I can get it if I just go on for five more minutes.... And five more... And five more...' But then, after all that, if you were totally exhausted and something leaped on you, you'd be dead. So the brain learned to keep a strategic reserve of energy and strength. A secret store, that you can't use consciously. You don't even know you've got it until you find, one day, that you really desperately need it. Your body feels totally exhausted, completely worked out, but somewhere lurking inside you there's that extra reserve, the reserve that only your unconscious brain knows about and controls."
He must have seen my jaw dropping open in amazement, as he continued "But with my social servants, it's different. I unlock those stores of energy, those reserves of strength. So my guys all work to their absolute limits - there's no holding back at all."
"So how do you do that...? I thought you said it was locked away, by the brain, outside conscious control."
"Sure, it is. But the brain can be fooled into thinking that the time has come when those secret stores are needed, that the body is in such desperate need of the energy, that it must be released. And that's what my overseers do, every day."
"No! Look, I can buy in to the stuff about the brain locking away some of the body's power and stuff - it seems to make sense. We are all conditioned by all those millions of years of evolution. But I don't believe you've got a whole crew of guys who can work harder, or even as hard, as I do! I've seen so many guys at work, and it just isn't possible."
"Are you a betting man, Steve?"
"I never say no to easy money...."
"So ten bucks on it? Ten bucks that says that I've got a crew, at least five guys, who can work harder than you?"
I thought about it for a moment. Was I being suckered into something? But it was only ten bucks - this was a bet for fun, a bet that showed we were serious about it, but not so serious that it threatened our livelihood. It's the kind of bet you often make, isn't it, just to "play the game"? So I gladly went along with it, and asked "And how will we know?"
"Are you free Sunday? Come and work alongside my crew, and see who stops first. I'll pay you your normal wages for the day, minus the ten bucks, that is, when you stop."
I smiled at him broadly. It wasn't the ten bucks, but the thought of a challenge. "Sure! But are your guys all working Sundays? No church, or anything?"
"You don't look like the kind of guy who's superstitious, Steve! Surly you don't waste time with church!"
"No, of course not. I haven't got time for all that praying to the ju-ju in the sky. But in a crew of five, in this part of the country, I'd have thought that some of them at least...."
"Steve, where have you been? They're indentured servants. It doesn't matter what they do or do not want to do - they do as I say, or they suffer the consequences. Don't you keep up with the news? That's why the indentured servant programme is so successful - in jail these guys would have been pampered, locked up most of the time, sprawling around in their cells and never made to do a stroke of work. And even then a lot of them would have played the system, and said they wanted to be educated, or reformed, or that they were christians or muslims or some other rubbish, and needed to go and pray.... We don't have any of that crap with indentured servants - they all work seven days a week, from sunrise to sunset. And if they don't they get punished."
"Well sometimes even I like a day off, even if it means losing a day's wages. It sounds to me like these indentured servants would take a break sometimes."
He just laughed! "We don't pay them, Steve. Where did you get that idea? I buy their contracts from the State, and then I have use of them, exclusive use, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. They don't get days off - that's a real waste for me."
"So how do you punish them, Mike? I mean, I guess that as you don't pay them, losing a day's wages if they've done something wrong isn't a sanction... But there must be some incentive...."
"Let me tell you about incentives, Steve! All those funny schemes where they say they're measuring your productivity, or setting you targets, or something.... They're all rubbish! We manage to incent our indentured servants quickly and simply: we just have the maxim 'work, or be punished'."
"But that's what I mean - you have them twenty four by seven, so how can you punish them?"
"Oh, lots of ways. The cane, the tawse.... And if they continue to under-perform, a good whipping usually does the trick. A man doesn't want the kiss of the whip on his hide more than once, and that usually fixes even the most idle worker."
"You mean you actually strike them? Punish them physically? Whip them, with a whip, to make them work?"
Mike must have heard the tone of sheer incredulity in my voice, as he leaned over towards me, and said calmly "Yes, Steve. And that's how we unlock that little secret store of power and work that your brain is keeping from us. I don't just have my workers working at one hundred percent - they all work at a hundred and ten percent, all the time. And that's why, Steve, next Sunday you're going to find yourself losing out, losing out big time, to my guys. That ten dollars is as good as mine now!"
End Of Part One