Chapter 2: Meet Hunter

(Narrated by Hunter; the same day)

My Saturday morning started out with breakfast: chatting and joking with my brothers. They can’t admit that I’m by far the most popular of the four of us, if you count the twins as two people which I don’t. I just call them both CT. They’re all just going to mope around the house while I do all the socializing. I can’t really blame them for envying me, everybody does.

Anyway, I said goodbye and went off to baseball practice. There’s been some competition but I’ve been the pitcher for the last two seasons and I am still a junior. I had to really fight to keep it this year though; I think I would have won naturally, but I got worried and just planted some drugs in the other pitcher’s locker. He was lucky not to get enslaved but the school didn’t want bad publicity so he got kicked off the team for the rest of the season. I felt bad about it, but then I didn’t get caught, and I decided not to think about it any more.

The coach was kind-of annoying. He was always emphasizing team-work and cooperation even though it was pretty obvious that I was the one keeping the team afloat.

Instead of focusing on scoring wins, the coach would deliver monologues about the importance of team work, or honesty, or grades. I didn’t really see the need for book learning myself, so I was usually on the verge of academic disqualification. The solution was simple: teachers don’t make much money so I’d buy them lavish gifts with dad’s money. They might have resisted the bribes, but I wasn’t trying to get straight As, and most of them were happy to find excuses to avoid failing me as that wouldn’t have been popular with the school board. The sport’s teams success was really important to them and as star pitcher I was critical to their future.

One major thorn in my side was my math teacher. He was a hard grader, so I tried my best to butter him up. At first, he eyed the gifts with suspicion, and I noticed that, if anything, he was grading more harshly than ever! Dad wanted to hire a tutor, but I came up with a better idea: I had our lawyer hire a private detective, who quickly got pictures of him entering the seediest gay club in town. Score! The next day I gave him a manila envelope with some choice photos, saying, “I really hope my math scores are getting better!” I’m pretty sure he got the message; our little Florida town is viciously homophobic.

Anyway, I mostly hated the baseball coach, even though I also was careful to stay on his good side. That mostly meant persuading other teammates to “prank” him so that I wouldn’t get caught. My favorite was this nerdy guy Kevin who was the team manager. He was always was trying to get on my good side. I think he was queer who I hate like by fat older brother. I decided to take advantage of his infatuation and I convinced him it’d be funny to put ex-lax in the coach’s coffee. He actually did it: the poor guy took like fifteen bathroom breaks during that practice. Everybody on the team was laughing about it, the kid couldn’t stop from boasting about his exploits! So then I ratted the kid out: I just wanted him off the team and out of the changing room. I felt pretty smart about that one!

As pitcher, I had a nickname for every member of the team, usually a bit of a taunt. Actually, I guess some were kind-of insulting, like “wheezy” or “short-stuff”, but hey, everybody was laughing when I said it.

After practice, it was time to pay my girlfriend a booty call. It was actually getting a bit late and I needed to be home since dad wanted to have a private talk. But my girlfriend as usual wanted to chat forever and start with plenty of foreplay.

But that was her problem, I didn’t have a choice: I had to get back and I had to get off. So, I fucked her hard and fast. My dick exploded in under a minute after we started: it wasn’t great sex but I felt good afterward. She was begging me to stay, she was wildly horny by now, the sex had just acted as foreplay for her.

But I bailed and drove home. She left me like thirty angry text messages: what a bitch! Oh well, I knew she’d get over it. She’d been way more upset when she had to get the abortion, but she got over that too.

I was sweaty and a bit disheveled, but I knew dad wouldn’t really care. I hurried to his office: I was ten minutes late. He was there, waiting.

“Did you have a nice day Hunter?” Dad began with niceties, but quickly got down to business. “As you may have noticed, I’ve been pruning our expenses.”

“Like selling the slaves?”

“Exactly, and a bunch of other expenses. I had to borrow a ton of money to make an investment, and I still need more cash. It’ll pay off eventually, probably within the year, but times are going to get even harder for us until then.”

“Then there’s a matter of a criminal fraud investigation, a complicated affair that I deeply regret. I thought I had gotten away with it, but there’s a new rumor of subpoenas and depositions. I’ve been making plans to provide for you if I get sent down the river. To make matters worse, there were a number of deaths associated with the case, but I think it’s unlikely I’d get the death penalty for fraud.”

“Jesus, Dad, that’s terrible.” I was stunned by the insanely bad news. I knew little about finances or law, so I didn’t have much to offer.

Dad seemed nervous, but added, “Anyway, I seriously don’t think they’ll catch up to me: I’ve concealed the evidence pretty well.”

“These were gambles that I needed to make for our long-term security. But our short-term cash problem is very real and immediate. So, this means I’m going to have to make the difficult decision to sell Clarence into slavery. We should make enough with just a five year term and limited-use.”

“Limited-Use?” It was a legal term meaning servants that wouldn’t be used for sex. “Who’d want to have sex with Clarence anyway?”

Dad looked a bit miffed at the question: “Slavery will get him into shape, you’ll see. Anyway, slavers have diverse tastes. We want someone who will be a good fit for Clarence. We need to start shopping for a buyer, and I want you to help me.”

“Oh hell yeah, anything to get that weirdo out of the house.” I paused and considered what he had just said, “Maybe we should just focus on cash, and not stress out about if it’s a ‘good fit for Clarence’.”

“If he’s my son, I’m going to take care of him. However, I’m suspicious, so I’m getting a paternity test done to find out.”

“Wow! You should have done this a long time ago.”

“Hunter, he’s still your brother – be respectful! In any event, we’ll tell him day-after tomorrow when I get the test results. Tonight, we’ll have dinner out as a treat. Do not talk about the enslavement!”

“Of course not, Dad! He’d probably run away!”

We adjourned our meeting. Between the sex and my dad’s secret, I was feeling almost high with self-satisfaction. We went to a fancy steakhouse – Dad let Clarence choose. As usual, Clarence couldn’t get anything right. All my food was wrong, and I had to send it back. Everyone else seemed too stupid to see how bad it was.

The conversation was just as annoying. Clarence was talking about the slave laws calling them “an abomination” but Dad and I were defending the idea of stratifying society. Clarence mentioned the “brutal slave conditions” and I rolled my eyes in annoyance.

“Like getting blowjobs?” I retorted, knowing Clarence wouldn’t want Dad to find out about that incident. “Maybe you should get some first-hand experience at slavery and find out!” I didn’t think Clarence would connect that this was a serious threat but Dad gave me a very angry stare for alluding to it.

Anyway, everyone else seemed to have a good time, but I was just so excited about Clarence’s enslavement that I couldn’t relax.

The next morning I jogged and goofed around the house before going to my friend Charlie’s house. He’s from another wealthy slave-owning family. We’ve grown up together: he’s more of a brother to me than Clarence.

He’d stolen a six-pack of beer from his dad, and we drank it furtively in his room before venturing out, fairly buzzed.

We walked by our school, for no reason. We were accosted by an anti-slave activist, a liberal black dude I had English class with. He was giving the usual spiel, but I interrupted him, “Watch out, we never should have freed your sorry asses to begin with.”

He was taken aback, so I finished it off by dropping the N-word. My friend Charlie was laughing at the dude, and gave me a fist-bump.

“Y’all’s a bunch of racists,” the dude was pissed, but decided to try to find somebody else to bother.

We decided to cut through the junior high school, and we saw the 6th-grade swim-team training.

We talked a while about what losers they were, and then he dared me to sneak in and steal their clothes from the locker room. I looked at my watch and could see they had just started practice. It was a Sunday so nobody was around. “I accept your challenge, captain,” I announced with mock-formality and a salute.

Around the time slavery was reintroduced, all that liberal anti-hazing bullshit stopped, except for a few pockets of resistance, so the seniors and sports teams had restarted welcoming the new class of students to our school in the old traditional ways. I know the twins had got it pretty bad. I was just getting on the sports teams and the captain who was the starting quarterback and pitcher insisted I showed my loyalty to the team by being up front when they got hazed.