Chapter 10: The Cylinder Room

Stephanie proved remarkably easy to control. I felt no need to have guards come along when I took her for her branding and later when I took her to the slave training facility. Partly this was because she was handcuffed, but probably the most important reason was because her defense attorney had given her the standard briefing about how the 'bio-implant' in her neck made successful escape impossible, made non compliance pointless and also provided her masters, including myself, with the ability to render her instantly unconscious should she be in any way rebellious. It wasn't lost on her that I had, on my left wrist, a remote control to her implant. She was a proud young woman and obviously had come to the conclusion that reluctant obedience was much preferable to being rendered unconscious.

In one sense the first step in conditioning Stephanie to her new life had been the branding of the slave number upon her naked buttocks in front of the crowd. But in another sense it began two days later when a local property auction firm hired by my client picked up Stephanie from the jail where she had been recuperating from her branding. They took her to her own home where their appraisal team proceeded to inventory all her belongings in her presence. I knew this was going to happen but did not hear the details of it until I talked to Stephanie later.

The following day I decided to personally deliver her to the Richmond SlendaBond Slave Training facility. I knew that this was a place where slaves were broken and, as it turned out I learned very much about how this would be done to Stephanie. My new partner, Virginia Johnson, came along for this visit. We made the long trip with Stephanie beside me on the front passenger seat and Virginia in the rear. My partner knew why I would find this seating arrangement agreeable and gave me a conspiratorial wink. The truth was I felt like taking certain liberties with Stephanie during the ride. Her hands were cuffed behind her and the only clothing she wore was the short cape I had given her at the courthouse. When she was standing it came down only to mid thigh. When I helped her into the passenger seat the hem of the cape rode up even higher. and I made sure the hemline rode up almost to her crotch when I placed her in the seat. She could not, of course, adjust the hemline for greater modesty as her hands were cuffed behind her.

Her tanned legs fascinated me. I longed to caress her left thigh and enjoy the feel of those long sleek muscles. I longed to raise the hem of the skirt up to her waist that I might enjoy the sight of her curly red pubic hair and her womanhood. My conscience stopped me from doing either of those things. I believed the girl had been through quite enough stress already. Also I believed these actions could be better tolerated by her once she was broken to her slavery.

When we first got into the car she kept glancing nervously at the control device that I wore on my left wrist, which controlled her bio-implant. I think she feared that at any moment I was going to use it to render her unconscious or to manipulate her body in some other way.

About an hour into the trip she had relaxed considerably. Probably she decided I would not use the controller to harm her. I noticed her quietly sobbing.

"Is there something distressing you Stephanie, apart from our destination today?" I asked.

"Yes sir, Mr. Steele. Yesterday some men picked me up at the jail and took me to my own home to appraise my belongings for possible auction."

"I imagine they were there to appraise your furniture." I said.

"Well they did that all right. But they also went through my diary and all my personal papers, photographs, videos, scrapbooks, correspondence and all the little things that tell the story of a person's life. I felt like they just wanted to invade my privacy and cause me embarrassment. They kept speculating aloud to their fellow workers how much the diary might bring at auction, how much the correspondence, etc."

She began crying again and I noted that she was red faced with embarrassment even recalling this incident. I also saw the tension in the muscles of her neck, shoulders and back.

"Stephanie, your furniture and your car will be auctioned. But I may be able to help you with the personal items. I can't promise anything yet, but I will try to get possession of those items from the auctioneers and store them for you so that you may get them back after you have served your ten year indenture."

"Thank you sir!" After that she drifted off to sleep.

After about two hours we were well into a rural area and saw the long stone walls of a country estate. We drove up to the gatehouse where a guard checked our slaver credentials before waving us through into the enclosed grounds. As we drove up the long driveway to the main building we saw numerous scantily clad young people engaged in all sorts of grounds maintenance tasks. It was surprising to see such a display of bare arms, bare midriffs and bare legs on this crisp fall day. I supposed that if these tanned and fit employees all kept working at a brisk pace they would not get chilled. I saw the telling non-citizen identification bracelets on the wrists of these workers. Purely out of idle curiosity, I pointed my cell phone at one pretty young female worker who was trimming the bushes and downloaded her ID information so that I might retrieve her personal history files later.

We drove the car around to the rear and pulled into the loading dock. We noticed 3 mini-vans parked nearby. These bore the name of a widely respected non-profit slave advocacy organization. I led Stephanie on her leash from the car to the rear entrance of the building. Once inside we stepped up to a long counter and were soon acknowledged by a rather pretty female security officer. Her badge and a stun gun at her belt proclaimed her no nonsense attitude. She stepped briskly up to the counter.

"Name!", she said.

"Bill Steelforth and my partner Virginia Johnson" I replied.

"Name of the slave please!"

"Stephanie Glenn" I responded, beginning to feel a bit cowed by this officious young woman.

"We were expecting you a half an hour ago Mr. Steelforth!" We waited while the young security officer typed our names into a computer terminal.

"We have her file here. It seems her enslavement order from the court is already on file. I will just need you to sign our standard transfer form," she said while shoving a long form with lots of legalese at me.

I quickly glanced it over and signed where she indicated. After completing the check in and obtaining a receipt for Stephanie, my partner and I proceeded to the central elevator bank. Soon we found ourselves on the fourth floor where we walked down a richly carpeted and softly lit corridor hung with expensive looking paintings. We had an appointment with the owner of this international firm, Morgan Richmond. We did not have long to wait before his secretary announced us to him through the intercom.

"Bill Steelforth and a Ms. Virginia Johnson to see you Mr. Richmond." Soon we were being escorted into his inner sanctum.

"What brings the two of you to our neck of the woods, Bill?" the old man asked, genially.

"Virginia and I have long been curious as to how you so effectively break new recruits to a life of slavery and obedience" I replied. "For my own part, I am particularly interested in how you will do it in the case of Miss Glenn. She has got under my skin and I would really enjoy seeing what will happen to her!"

"Not so fast. First I must object to your terminology. We don't 'break' slaves here, Bill. To break someone implies damage that cannot be undone. Everything we do here is designed to enhance our client's experience of absolute control of the slave, yet everything we do must be completely reversible in nature. When a slave's term of indenture is completed or when the court orders a slave freed, we have to be able to restore that slave to the point that he or she can return to the life they had before enslavement. The freed slave must be able to function independently just as before, and have all intellectual and physical abilities intact."

"Secondly we don't just grind out one uniform product here. We fine tune our methods to produce the particular type of slave our clients most wish to have under their control."

"Fascinating!" I said. "Will I be able to see these methods used on Stephanie?"

"We may be able to show you the first stage today, Bill" Morgan replied. But to see the later stages of her subjugation you will need to visit us again in about 30 days."

"Why don't I have our Training Director, Charlie Witherspoon, join us?"

I could hardly believe my ears. Could it be? Could this be the same Charles Witherspoon I had shared a drink with in a brothel in my youth? The one who told me so excitedly about how he had raped an old high school classmate who had maliciously ruined his social life? I saw the old man push an intercom button on his desk.

"Margaret, would you see if Charlie is available and send him in to join us?"

In a few minutes, when Charlie walked in, I stood and high fived him just like we had done at that brothel so many years before.

"I gather you two know each other!" Morgan said. Charlie quickly filled the old man in on the circumstances of our meeting at the brothel so many years earlier. He seemed delighted to hear about our risqué experience of two decades earlier. Even Virginia was amused.

"As we were driving up to the main building", Morgan, "Virginia and I saw a lot of young people with non-citizen wrist bands toiling away on the grounds. I was curious about that."

"Non citizens are much cheaper than slaves, Bill. They will work for low wages and we are not required by any law to provide them with health or retirement benefits, as we would be if they were slaves. Most of them we hire by the day only, and these hires require no periodic examinations or record keeping or auditing by any outside organization."

"In the main hallway of the building, Morgan, we passed a classroom full of slaves taking some sort of written test. What is that all about?"

"We are required, under the "Kinder and Gentler Slavery" law, to administer tests once/month to all our slaves. These test the slaves mental and emotional state as well as include physical and medical exams where we inspect for and document any bruises, cuts or injuries as well as any evidence of malnutrition. Any decline in a slave's weight or mental, emotional or physical condition must be documented in our files."

"What is the point of all that?" I asked.

"As you know Bill, a slave has no standing to complain to any court or administrative body concerning his or her treatment while a slave. But any certified slave advocacy organization can come in at any time and conduct an audit of these records that we are required to maintain. There is an audit team in the building right now."

"Yes, we were wondering about that", Virginia interjected. "We saw their vans out by the loading dock."

"They have to be cross-licensed by the State of New York and by the Federal Government of Capitallia. Besides auditing records," Morgan continued, "they can also demand to do their own unannounced examination of any random sample of our slaves. If they find we have abused a slave they can petition the court for us to forfeit possession of that slave. We have always had good reports, but some of our competitors have gotten heavily penalized for not adhering to the standards of humane slave care specified in the statutes."

"I am reassured to hear of all this, gentlemen!" Virginia nodded her head in agreement.

"But that is the whole point", Charlie replied. "We want the public to be reassured so that there will be ever greater popular support for maintaining and even extending the slave system."

"These two have been expressing interest in our training methods, Charlie. Perhaps, if you are free just now, you could take them on a tour."

"I have an hour or so. Have they both signed the confidentiality agreement?"

"I was just getting to that." Morgan said. "I am sure you realize that much of what we do to the slaves in this facility is proprietary in nature. We are not required to document or disclose our training methods under any law. I must, therefore, insist that you both sign our standard "Confidentiality Agreement" before we can take you on a tour or discuss our methods with you." Morgan was handing us both clipboards with an agreement and a pen.

"Of course, Morgan. No problem." I quickly put my signature where Morgan had indicated and handed it back to him, as did my partner.

"You might say our basic mission at Richmond SlendaBond", Morgan continued, "is to take human beings who are already enslaved in a purely legal sense and turn them into human beings that are enslaved in every sense. That is what we mean when we speak of 'slave transformation'. This is what will happen to your Stephanie. When they come to us, fresh from a court judgment, they are usually angry, resentful, sullen, or outright rebellious. They would sooner say 'Fuck You! ' than they would obey an order we give them. To be enslaved in the fullest sense means losing the ability or the will to resist servitude, losing the ability to say no to anyone in authority."

"The reason our clients want to control human beings this completely could be a sexual one, or it could have to do with the need to protect business trade secrets or the need to protect a large investment in the training of specialized workers."

"Since many of them come to us under five, ten or twenty year indentures we have to be careful that what we do to them can be undone when it is time to return them to their lives as free men and women. We are not permitted to injure their bodies or to inflict physical pain and we have to make sure that what we do to their minds is reversible. Finally we must have the ability, before we can set them free, to erase from their minds specific knowledge of certain things they may have known or experienced during their slavery."

"Can you tell us what kind of things would you erase from their minds?" Virginia asked.

"Certainly", Morgan continued. "Knowledge of business trade secrets or proprietary knowledge of industrial processes."

"Are there other things you would erase from their minds before setting them free?" I asked.

"Things like the identity of particular people they were forced to serve sexually or the nature of the sexual services they were forced to provide to those people. We couldn't very well have a slave freed, at the end of an indenture, going out and writing a book and naming names! If we are to have a robust market for slaves we must protect the privacy of those who use the slaves at all costs!"

"I see what you mean Morgan" I responded. "Earlier you had mentioned that you don't just 'grind out one type of product' as you put it. Could you expand on that?"

"We turn out a variety of slave types here", Bill, "to meet the desires of our clients. One thing all our products have in common is that they all obey instantly and without question all orders they are given. But the nature of that obedience can vary considerably"

"How so?" Virginia asked.

"Since I knew you were coming, I arranged to have some of our products on display for your perusal. Why don't we all adjourn to the sales room now? I think a little demonstration would be worth 1000 words."

Virginia and I followed Morgan and Charlie down the hall to a sales exhibition room. It was a beautiful room with a high ceiling, rich carpeting and dramatic use of lighting and burgundy velour draperies. What immediately drew my eye was a row of short pedestals on each of which stood a scantily clad slave. There was one male slave wearing only a pair of short shorts, and four female slaves each wearing a brief sleeveless midriff baring top and a pair of short shorts. Each slave was brilliantly lit by multiple spotlights somewhere up in the ceiling. All were slender and physically fit, and all appeared to be in their early to mid twenties. None was restrained in any way, but each stood on his or her pedestal apparently awaiting our pleasure. I could see that my partner, Virginia, was letting her gaze rest first on the male's biceps and impressive chest, then lower to the bulge in his shorts. My eyes lingered on the flat tummies and long slender legs of the females.

"Why don't we begin with a round of introductions" Morgan said, turning to the slaves. "I want each of you to introduce yourself to our guests, tell us how you came to be enslaved, and how you feel about your slavery today."

"My name is Henry," said the first one, "and I was enslaved in a criminal proceeding as punishment for having embezzled money from my employer. Mr. Richmond's company bought me at a public auction. I do not much enjoy being a slave but I have been ordered by a court to pay my debt to society. I have ten years to serve."

"My name is Laura," the second slave stated, "and I was enslaved for debt by this fucking company after they bought up all my other debts. I don't think slavery should be legal and I certainly don't think I should be here. I will never get used to it. I fight the slavery every chance I get, but something always makes me do whatever they command me to do."

"My name is Susan," the third stated, "and I played a high stakes game of chance. I gambled my freedom against the possibility of a big cash prize. I lost. I don't like being a slave but I guess it is best I cooperate. It will go easier for me that way."

"My name is Mary," the fourth said, "and I too was enslaved for debt. Slavery has been very good for me because it has taught me my place in the world and a proper respect for people who are my 'betters'. I have learned that it is a sin to be 'uppity' and that I am most comfortable when other people are exercising their rightful authority over me."

"My name is Cocoa," the last one, a beautiful black girl, said, "and I'm here because I just think slavery is so cool. NOT! I dreamed of a life like this since I was a little girl. NOT!"

"Well, Bill and Virginia, you have met a diverse group of our products in training— our criminal slave, our rebellious slave, our cooperative slave, our submissive slave, and our saucy slave! Despite their various attitudes the one thing they all have in common is that they all do obey. Under the 'Kinder and Gentler Slavery Law' we may not resort to physical punishment or the threat of physical punishment to keep them under control. But there is nothing in the law that says we can't coerce them. Slavery without coercion would be a contradiction in terms. Let me give you a little demonstration of how we do control them."

"Susan, Mary, Cocoa- Display Now!" Morgan spoke, addressing the three slaves on one end of the row of pedestals.

We were then treated to three female slaves pushing their shorts and panties down to their knees, and standing in place, with their legs well separated, awaiting further orders. I could not help but admire their fine young bodies and erect postures. We were impressed too by their attitudes. Smiling faces and no sign of anger or resentment at what they were being made to do.

With them all on pedestals, our eyes were at crotch level. Virginia was impressed by their instant obedience of course, but, not being a lesbian, showed little interest in their bodies. I, on the other hand, walked up and down the line, studying the buttocks and genitals of each of these three beauties. I was astonished to note that all they all had rings surgically installed in their private parts to which a leash might be attached. One had a labia ring and the other two had rings piercing their clitoral cowls.

"In our culture", Morgan continued, "free women who are also citizens do not expose their genitals in mixed company for any reason and certainly not on command. These three had been free citizens until quite recently. So it was a true test of their obedience that they exposed themselves completely and without hesitation when commanded to do so. In slave societies of the past this sort of obedience was generally obtained by whippings or other physical punishments, the threat of such punishments, or by withholding necessary things like food or water. We are not allowed to do any of those things to our slaves, yet we get the obedience we want from them."