Chapter 4

I was truly mortified as my son offered to help discipline me. I didn’t think he truly understood what he was asking and thought this was all a game of pretend – which I wished it was.

Madame Parrish thought it absolutely unthinkable reminding the boy he was already winded and hadn’t had a callous on his hands in his entire life. “This is hard work and driving the plow is as much a labor as doing the pulling. You would never have the strength of wit or purpose to do what needs to be done,” she insisted.

“You would be a distraction and seek to spoil your mother rather than discipline her with the rod,” Abigail said.

I agreed – although my nodding in agreement was mostly because I wanted Charles nowhere near me as I was. Stark naked, bound by leather without foot wear, gagged with a bit, and a leather whip handle up my bare ass.

“You took my idea on the tail! It worked. How does it stay like that? Are you clenching?” he asked me as he tugged it. I wiggled so that he would not touch me further but Madame Parrish called my gyrations ‘obscene’ and used it as all the more reason Charles could not help.

“All the able men have long since been pressed into service and I am afraid I’ve no one to spare from the seminary,” the Professor said.

“How about a woman of stern fiber and moral character?” Madame Parrish requested from the porch.

“Those are in short supply as well, you are one of the only ones I know in Jones County,” The Professor twirled his white mustache.

“You flatter me too much that I would put on airs and need discipline myself,” her chuckle reminded me of a bullfrog’s croak on a hot summer night.

“You have nothing to lose by letting me try,” Charles once again made his plea and the Professor said he would see if he could find a volunteer to help when he returned to the mansion. In the meantime, I was to begin paying off my debt immediately.

I was taken to the stable and the whip was removed and I was unbound and shackled to the barn near the hay where I would have to do my ablutions without even so much as a bucket – right on the muddy floor.

In the evening, the Professor and Abigail escorted me into the house and removed my shackles. They offered me a chemise and said that I could wear it while I clean and serve dinner.

“You want me to cook and clean after all of that?” I said with outrage strained in my voice.

“Would you have Madame Parrish get out of her wheelchair and do it? Abigail perhaps take your place?” the Professor had very little regard for my protest and I knew it fell on deaf ears. “You will soon have a partner with which to share these duties. Until then, do your service without complaint or I’ll recommend harsher penalties.”

The professor drew up an agreement of indentured servitude for one year wherein I agreed to the fault of causing injury to Madame Parrish and in exchange for room and board would provide labor in any manner of her choosing. He explained even though technically my son had been the one to distract her the fault lie with me as his mother.

They gave me little choice except to sign the document and so once I served them food at the table I was told to return to the barn and Abigail would be out directly to provide my gruel.

I had very little worldly items now but what few clothes I had would be packed into a trunk that would be made available when I had served my term – assuming that the raiders didn’t burn down the plantation and everything in it.

Abigail came out to the barn after dinner while her grandmother and the professor talked in the parlor. “Why do you have on your chemise?” she demanded when she came in and saw me seated on a stump.

“It’s chilly at night and I saw no reason to sit here naked,” I answered her.

“You are to remain naked in the barn at all times. You only wear the chemise when you are in the house to serve out of modesty for our guests and your betters!” she demanded. She pointed to a spot on the hay and told me to kneel after I removed it.

I begrudgingly did as the younger girl said and after completely undressing knelt and looked up at her. She had me open my mouth. She inserted a funnel and pushed it into my throat almost choking me. Abigail used the ladle to drop a dollop of very cold, sour tasting gruel into my mouth. I could not live only on this stuff and as I choked it down I wanted to spit it in her face.

“Saint Catherine of Sienna healed the sick, wore no clothes and took no food except the offering of Christ for seven years,” she told me. I didn’t believe her but I had no way to prove otherwise. She told me to swallow faster and that tomorrow she would work me harder.

“You made me look foolish today in front of the Professor,” she said. I was still guzzling and slurping down my gruel and if I stopped to try to reply it would have choked me to death as I swallowed. “You will regret that. You’ll get a lot further if you just accept my authority and stop trying to act all high and mighty,” she said.

I had no idea what she meant. She waited for me to finish and then took the funnel out of my mouth and shackled my legs and bound my hands behind my back – leaving me in the darkness of the barn with nothing but the occasional hoot of owls and the scratches of barn mice trying to avoid them.

It was difficult to sleep with the thought of them scurrying about my bare skin but I was so exhausted I had no choice.

Later that night my son snuck out to visit me. He had brought me some bread and snuck it to me. He had to hand feed me. I warned him not to get in trouble on my account.

“I am so sorry you are in trouble for the mayhem I caused,” he said. He was a good boy and I appreciated the sentiment. I cautioned him against participating in my discipline though. He said that he didn’t see why.

“Well for one, I am naked” I pointed out the most obvious concern. I was very surprised that he did seem even remotely surprised by the appearance of a nude woman or taken aback. He had seen naked slaves being whipped before but never a woman such as myself.

Charles told me that there was once a large number of exquisite nude paintings in the Captain’s study before the soldiers tore them down and ransacked the house. He had studied them very carefully and while I looked much like what he imagined he was now more curious about certain parts of the body that the paintings did not show.

“You will have the opportunity to learn about that with your wife one day,” I whispered to him.

“My wife? I’ll never be married,” he chuckled at the absurdity of the notion that he would ever grow up and be married. He had not thought much about what it meant to be a man and soon he would have to do that but for now I didn’t want him to think much more on it.

“Please, this is all rather embarrassing to me and I’d rather you spend time with your books,” I implored him to leave me be.

“As I see it, we are all each other has and we are in this together. I’ll pull my weight and help and if I see that Abigail isn’t being fair then maybe I can do something to protect you,” he smiled. He did want to be helpful but I warned him that she could be a very vindictive girl. He said he knew that already first hand and bid me good night.

In the morning, I awoke to yet another splash of water as the Professor, Abigail and Charles stood over me. Charles had the bucket and he grinned impishly. “You sleep hard, mum!” he told me.

I spluttered out the water and spit before rising.

“We are going to accompany the professor back to the seminary!” Charles told me enthusiastically. “We must make you ready but first your breakfast!”

They had brought the funnel and the gruel and had me swallow down more of the slop. It was disgusting and nearly made me wretch. I was told to stand and Abigail used a bucket to wet the whip before shoving it up my anus while my son attached the blinders to my head and the professor made sure the bit was snug and tight.

I had thought we were going to the seminary – but I had no idea they expected me to remain in the state I plowed the fields.

They walked me outside to the carriage. It had been built for two horses originally but the old nag that pulled was it the only one the professor had left. “She won’t run very fast so you can pace yourself,” he said that the run would help build up my endurance.

They locked me into the harness and then bound my hands behind me to the wooden struts that pulled the wagon. The three of them climbed onto the carriage and then the professor cracked his whip and we moved forward. I had no choice but to keep up pace with the horse which was admittedly slow.