Chapter 7

“C’mon man, Boss Itoomawa’ll be here soon. Gotta get this over with.”

“hnuguh?” I snorted and cleared my throat.

“I said wake up Adam.” The voice was hushed but insistent. Male. I’d heard it before. I opened my eyes to a middle-aged black man holding a candle. Candle? Weird, who still uses ... oh, right. I was a slave in a post-apocalyptic future now. I’d be waking up to that realization every day of my life, never getting used to it. Across the tiny room, my teenaged roommate Chogan turned over and grunted. Rodney motioned me to the door with his head, tossed a burlap robe at me. Deciding not to argue the point, I slipped out of my red pants and shirt toy-boy outfit from the night before and put the robe on, reminded uncomfortably of wearing a similar one while being marched to the auction block. Rodney gently closed the door behind us. Dug deep into the rocky mountaintop, the windowless hallway was dark aside from the candle and a distant lamp.

“Don’t wear your good clothes to bed. Gotta make ‘em last.”

“Are these the bad ones?” I asked.

“Worst ones” he said then handed me the candle and pointed me to the toilets. When I returned he was standing by the wall-lamp with Itoomawa, the stately, angular-featured slave mistress who’d bought me a week before. I froze when I saw the leather bullwhip at her belt. Oh, shit. Forgot I’d been sentenced to be whipped for almost taking a swing at the town’s boss before she had me fuck her. I tried to think of some way to plead my case, but her stone-cold expression pre-empted me.

“Come on, let’s get this over with.”

She led me into the main hall, half-lit by predawn murk, where a tall, lanky young girl in the same rough robe waited manacled to an over-long rope. Itoomawa wrapped herself in a dark fur mantle, kicked a pair of slippers in my direction, cuffed me one position behind the girl and had me hoist the loose end with its several more metal fastenings. Thus she led us out the door through the facade’s tapestried and lavishly furnished entrance hallway, and out into a bitterly cold morning with hoarfrost streaking the ground, through the surprisingly busy streets. Downhill toward the sunrise, under the town wall was an empty space with five tree stumps, some original, others driven into the ground next to them, framed by exceedingly long wooden beams running along the ground. Itoomawa positioned us between two upright wooden poles and looped the rope around their tops, forcing out arms upward ... and just left us there. We’d already been shivering. Now, as women started ambling toward us to have a look, our teeth began chattering. I noticed the girl rubbing one foot at a time along the back of her leg to warm up her skin and imitated her but it barely helped. The growing crowd’s murmurs and sneers drove home the point this period of exposure, both social and to the elements, was very much an intended part of our punishment. On her return, Itoomawa unlocked our manacles and told us to strip, to much hooting from the crowd when mine came off, despite (or because) my genitals had shrunk to the size of an acorn.

“Take your spots” Itoomawa said. The girl, now so visibly skinny her ribs stuck out like an accordion, with bony hips to match and almost no tits, immediately bent over the nearest stump and gripped the wooden bar with her hands, hissing painfully at their touch. Immitating her I found out wood doesn’t hold much heat when there’s no heat to hold. Trembling from head to toe uncontrollably, I struggled to lock my fingers around the wooden bar, ass out to the audience, hearing:

“Stealing food. Again. Five lashes.”

A barely audible whoosh and a strident slap set the girl beside me crying. After a couple of seconds, another drew a weak wail, and she slumped against the freezing stump whimpering. Another and another and another. Continued crying. Pause.

“Talking back to Boss Tara. Two lashes.”

Before I could even tense at realizing that meant me, the whip whistled and my back exploded in pain. For a second I couldn’t even breathe. Then I snorted loudly and gritted my teeth, pain searing from my right shoulderblade to my left side. Before I could gather my wits the second hit made me arc as if to instinctively bolt away, rattling the wooden bar with my grip. I went limp, feeling the two strips of pain radiating across my skin in the chill.

“Alright, get up.” Itoomawa coiled her whip back up and tied it to her belt as one of the kinder women from the two score onlookers tossed us our robes. Huddling, blinking back tears and still shivering uncontrolably, wondering how this skinny twig had managed to endure five hits, I stood next to the sniffling, whimpering girl in the mounting morning breeze before our mistress while the crowd dispersed.

“You” she pointed to me “take the rope back to the guard by the bitches’ wing. You” she motioned to the half-starved teen “get a sack of cabbage up from the greenhouses to the kitchen. Tell them Boss Itoomawa said to give you an extra helping this morning. Don’t steal again, got that?”

“Y-y-es m-mist-tr-ress. Thank-k y-you!” We both hurried to cover up. Then she dashed away between the houses while I coiled the ritualistic manacled rope around my non-wounded shoulder and rushed for the warmth of the mansion. Our tormentor took no further notice of us, chatting with a couple of the lingering crowd. Struggling uphill I also struggled to wrap my head around how this woman who’d masturbated to my naked body could now attack it in such a manner, as casually as taking a morning piss. Nobody had complained. Nobody had tried to defend me. At least nobody had cheered either, though there was something psychotic even in that: nude whippings serving as casual morning entertainment, the crowd yawning at our pain as indifferently as I would have at some busty bimbo twittering her way through a weather report.

I knocked on the massive wooden double doors at the main entrance. The guard pulled it open and grudgingly let me pass but clucked her tongue at me in reprimand:

“Use the side doors unless you’re with a free woman, tube stiff. Dontcha know nothin’? You’ll get us both in trouble.”

Grunting in assent I hurried into the main hall and just then realized I had no idea what Itoomawa had meant by the bitches’ wing. Luckily Rod popped his head out of our common hallway and seeing my confusion pointed me to the opposite side, a hallway much like our own, but grabbed my arm to stop me from going in.

“No sneakin’ in the girls’ dorm, hero.” Instead he stood at the entrance and gave a short whistle. A robed woman shambled sleepily out of one room and took the rope, thanking us brusquely. Then, he led me back to our wing and straight to the steam-filled baths. A naked Chogan, dick swinging freely from his wispy young pubes, didn’t even bother trying to cover up while drying himself.

“How bad was it?” Then helping Rod take my robe off: “Hey, you got off easy. Boss must like you.” I almost turned around and smacked him. Rodney instead ushered him out quickly.

“Alright kid, he’s not used to this, remember? Give the guy some space.”

I turned my attention to trying to warm up. When I saw a full tub radiating heat in one corner I turned questioningly to Rodney. He just grinned and waved me to it.

“Get in, get in.”

“F-fuck man. You’re a l-lifesaver!” I stepped in and just huddled there in the warmth untilI stopped shivering and felt a warm glow spreading through my body, which mainly served to make me more aware of the stinging along my back. He soon came back with a jar of something fragrant.

“Don’t get it wet after I put this on there. Kid was right though. No bleeding, not even much of a welt. Stay off your back for a day or two and you’ll barely feel these.” I winced at him slathering a cool unguent along the wound, beyond caring about being naked in a tub with another man rubbing my back, though it also helped Rod’s interest was obviously utilitarian.

“Alright man. I think everyone’s out so you’ve got the bath to yourself for now. Remember the side hall to the kitchen?”

“Yeah?”

“Go there when you’re hungry. Watch what you say around the cooks, they like to talk. I left your regular clothes by the door. You’ve got the rest of the day off. Get your head on straight. Work starts tomorrow. Boss might ask for you in the evening but probably not.”

“Hey, Rodney?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re doing a shit job of not being friendly.”

He grinned widely, nodded and left. I wanted nothing more than to hide in the tub nursing my wounds until World War 4, but it wasn’t long before my stomach started growling. I scrubbed my front while ignoring my back, drained the water and rinsed, got into my simple grayish linen pants and shirt and some socks and soft cloth indoor slippers and found my way (mostly by smell) to the kitchens. To my surprise, the girl from earlier was already there, dark-haired, dark-eyed and slightly dark-skinned, sitting primly next to a small sack of cabbages, as was Cam the elderly slave who’d been bought alongside me. A third woman, blonde, looked vaguely familiar but I couldn’t place her until I saw her piling an ornate plate of scrambled eggs with two sprigs of mint. Spotting me, she smiled.

“Hey there Adam. Name’s Goldie if you remember, though you might recognize my behind better than my face.” She winked at the other two. I blushed, acutely aware of my lack of underwear all of a sudden. Cam raised her eyebrows and pursed her lips in mock shock. The teen giggled shyly and lowered her gaze. As Goldie left with the boss bitch’s breakfast under a lid, I caught the girl staring sideways at me. She dropped her eyes again then again raised them when I sat nearby, both of us stiff-backed trying to keep our shirts from rubbing against our wounds. She smelled of the same unguent as me. At least someone was taking care of her.

“Umm...” she ventured, then trailed off. Cam sighed, and slid a plate with a small amount of egg and a large amount of hash browns toward her.

“What’s your name girl?”

“Maria. You’re Cam? You got bought same time as him?” Before waiting for an answer she dove into her plate. Cam watched her pityingly and I remembered why the teen had been punished: stealing food. Being in her mid- teens she was probably starving through the metabolic demands of a late growth spurt. And being whipped for it. Insane. No wonder she looked like a distended slinky. We were briefly interrupted by a man in red picking up a platter of food from Cam, who then supplied me with my own portion of egg and potato.

“Yeah, I’m Cam, that’s me. Don’t tell me you didn’t ask around what his name is.”

“Adham” the girl mumbled with her mouth full, avoiding my gaze, suddenly swallowed, and: “Are you really a tube stiff?”

“That’s what they call me, yeah.”

She looked me up and down curiously.

“People say weird things about you but you just look regular and all the others do too. I like the tube stiffs working in town, they’re nice.”

“Weird things?”

Cam took her plate and refilled it, tossing a couple of carrots on top for good measure, which shut the kid up while munching. Cam shook her head at me and lowered her voice.

“Trash and babble about curses from the old days. Don’t pay any attention to it.”

A couple more women walked in and began chopping cabbages, and the conversation shifted. I finished off and rinsed off my plate, pumping a lever by the sink for water, then excused myself. I spent a short time trying to map out the mansion’s lower floor, keeping out of the main rooms where I heard conversations. Apparently male and female slaves each had their own wing on the bottom floor, with the top occupied by Tara’s family and some choice retainers like Itoomawa. Most rooms were dug deep into the mountainside, but at least in daytime enough light reflected along the halls that lamps weren’t strictly necessary. Remembering the warning about the front door, I found a servants’ entrance and stepped outside. Not having the shoes or clothes for exploring I didn’t venture far, but the mansion’s elevation still allowed me to spend the better part of the day taking stock of the town.

New Sully. My home for the foreseeable future. The whip marks across my back burned at the thought. With the sun up the weather was downright balmy, being high enough in the mountains that the difference between night and day was as between death and life. The town itself lacked much rhyme or reason, houses having grown alongside and into each other in the haphazard manner of preindustrial societies. From somewhere behind us a stream rushed through the far end of town, explaining the access to running water and flanked by several watermills. Farm fowl argued with each other from many houses, along with dogs and cats. Beyond the walls, moving arrays of dots along mountainsides indicated larger livestock. Grassy or lightly forested ridges crested the horizon. The tableau could’ve seemed idyllic if not for the slavery, casual brutality and defensive wall decorated with the skulls of their enemies.

That was the weird part, how normal it could all seem. A couple of housecats were sniffing around the punishment stumps. Women, some of whom might’ve treated themselves to the spectacle of my whipping and nude humiliation just hours earlier, went along the twisting alleyways. Some houses were clearly dedicated to cottage businesses, drab slaves hauling goods between them. Smoke rose from chimneys dug into underground housing. Food aromas wrestled along the shifting wind. Life went on, and for the first time I realized how relieved I was at that. I’d been put into suspended animation when all seemed lost ... and now it wasn’t, and for everything we’d lost life looked painfully normal. People still fucked and fought, everyone still had a whip-cracking boss (albeit more literally), the seasons turned and children shrieked down below while playing tag and hide-and-seek from garden to garden. I shuddered at how easily I could get used to this primitive, sick society, and headed back indoors.