Chapter 30

The big deputy had removed my handcuffs as the sheriff had instructed and now Deputy Bluett was watching me take a shower. The water was hot anyway and it felt good as I soaped my body under the man's less than happy scrutiny. He wanted to like me as a woman, I thought, but the man just couldn't get past my smallish penis and balls and it frustrated him. So he stood there at the entrance of the small communal shower, watching my soapy hands work their way over my taut brown belly and firm round tits; along my legs and the pert curve of my ass and hips. I wasn't teasing him deliberately, but it must have seemed like I was and everytime I glanced at the deputy he was frowning.

I ignored him as best I could and washed myself thoroughly. I was grateful for it really. My body had been sticky and especially my butt needed some gentle attention. I worked a soapy finger around my anus and then inside slowly, wishing I had a way to spray water inside my rectum. This wasn't bad though and I always enjoyed washing myself there, although doing it in front of Deputy Bluett was more than a little uncomfortable. He stared at me as I did it and I imagined I must have looked like I was masturbating as much as anything else and perhaps I was. My girlish cock grew stiff despite the man's presence and I turned towards the wall to hide it, but that only presented the deputy with a clear view of my soapy finger pumping in and out of my asshole slowly. There just wasn't any way to hide myself and the embarrassment I felt only heightened the taboo excitement of fingering my boy pussy in front of a stranger.

He let me finish in my own sweet time and I managed to avoid playing with my swollen girl cock too much. I merely teased myself with a slippery fist for a minute or two and then rinsed myself thoroughly. The shower made me feel much better and actually lifted my spirits some. I only wished I had some clean clothes to put on and I frowned at my lace panties because they were very stained by then. I was in for a surprise though as Deputy Bluett told me not to bother getting dressed.

"Sir?" I blinked at him.

"I said, don't bother," he jerked his head. "I got some new clothes for you. Come on this way."

I'd dried myself off with a small and very thin towel, like the ones found in those cheap motels Mr. Davis and I had been staying in. It got the wetness off me anyway, but only barely, and I followed the fat deputy out of the showers and into a changing room of sorts where he gave me a small orange bundle of clothing folded up inside a plastic bag.

"Put this on," Deputy Bluett told me. "And put your old clothes in the bag. Shoes too."

"Um," I looked at the clothing. "Are there some panties or anything?"

"Panties?" the man almost chuckled. "I don't think so, boy."

"Oh," I nodded at that and probably should have expected it.

My new clothes were a set of thin cotton jumpers, like coveralls sort of, with Velcro instead of a zipper or buttons, and no pockets at all. There was a stencil painted on the back that said 'W.S.D.' in white letters and I wondered what they were going to do with my old clothes and especially my purse. I didn't ask about it, but only dressed quickly and it was a tight fit because apparently those jumpers were made for a boy. The height was okay, but my breasts just didn't want to fit and so I could only close the front some of the way. It left a deep V through which the swell of my breasts were plainly obvious and if i wasn't careful they'd probably spill right out. The coveralls were tight around my hips and ass too and I wondered if I wasn't going to pop a seam or something.

Deputy Bluett gave me some cheap rubber shoes for my feet, like sneakers except they were ugly orange and uncomfortable, and at least a size too big for me. I didn't even have socks, but I wasn't going to complain. I just put them on and they didn't even have laces, just Velcro again, which seemed awfully silly to me.

"Can I brush my hair? Sir?" I asked him.

"Ummm..." The deputy swallowed hard when he looked at me, seeing me standing there dressed now I think he was finding it hard to remember I had a penis.

"It's right there in my purse," I nodded. "If it wouldn't be a bother, sir."

"Yeah, it'd be okay, I guess." Deputy Bluett licked his lips and opened the plastic bag and then my purse, finding my brush and handing it to me without a word.

"Thank you, sir," I smiled, keeping my eyes down because sometimes I forgot how a proper negra should act, truth be told. Mr. Reiser had spoiled me something fierce. I found all of this a little strange, but if it got me home all the sooner, I'd wear whatever they wanted me to.

"Hey, um, Dan ... Danny..."

"Danielle, sir," I offered politely as I brushed my hair with the help of a mirror, but that was okay.

"Right, um ... How long have you been, you know..." Deputy Bluett cleared his throat.

"A girl?" I asked gently and smiled because I got that question a lot it seemed.

"A fag."

"Oh. Ever since I was born, I think," I shrugged and that word didn't bother me. "I can't do anything about how I am, inside or outside."

"Yeah, I guess so," he scratched along his double chins. "Being queer, it's uh, illegal in this state."

"Not for a slave, sir," I said. "Right?"

"Right. Yeah, I guess," the deputy said, making it sound like he thought it ought to be.

He'd watched me have sex with the sheriff, and then I'd taken a shower in front of him. Now I was standing there, wearing those tight orange jumpers, brushing my hair, and looking and talking like a pretty teenage bedroom negra. Deputy Bluett was confused and he'd never had a queer thought in his life, but I'd be willing to bet he was thinking about it now and it wasn't making him too happy.

"When do you think I can go home, sir?"

"Home?" The deputy shrugged as he took my brush back. "I wouldn't worry about that too much, the sheriff will find you one."

"Sir?" I narrowed my eyes, not understanding what the man meant by that strange remark at all.

"Come on, he's waiting on us." Deputy Bluett wasn't going to tell me much more than he already had and he jerked his head towards the door.

"Nope. It's coming up with an error, Sheriff," the fat man shrugged.

We were in the main office and Deputy Bluett had been trying to scan my slave tattoo for five minutes, but apparently he wasn't getting any information about me. I was sitting on a chair at his desk and Mr. Davis was sitting beside another desk just a dozen feet away with the sheriff sitting on the other side of it, rocking back and forth slightly while his other deputies worked around us. They weren't saying much, but just doing their jobs and while I'd never been in a sheriff's station before, I supposed it was business as usual for them.

"Yeah, that Interstate Slave Identification System must be down again." The sheriff pinched his lips between his fingers as he regarded my former math teacher. "Well, Mr. Davis, I reckon you're free to go."

"I'm ... Free?" Mr. Davis looked at the sheriff with obvious surprise and I blinked at that.

Mr. Davis had been sitting there, talking to the sheriff when the deputy had brought me back from my shower. My teacher had given me a look, an unhappy one, and I'd turned my eyes away. It had pained me terribly to have to turn the man in like that, but what choice did I have? Mr. Davis had stolen me and I wanted to go home. I felt guilty about it and I wasn't sure how to feel with the news that the man who'd stolen me was going free.

"You're letting him go?" I asked, not sounding much like a negra at all just then and the sheriff gave me a deep frown to shut me up quick. I dropped my eyes and bit my lip and reminded myself that I wasn't back home. I was someplace else.

"Yes sir," the sheriff nodded slowly at Mr. Davis. "Our computers don't seem to be working, so I don't think we need to detain you any longer."

"But what about Dani? The negra, I mean," Mr. Davis looked at me. "I can't just leave her..."

"Is that so?" The sheriff spread his hands. "That computer could start working any time, Mr. Davis. Now you can stay if you like, but I got the feeling a busy fella like you might want to be someplace else when it does."

"What, uh, what's going to happen to her?" Mr. Davis asked slowly.

"The nigger? He's a runaway slave," the sheriff said, pointedly correcting the other man. "So we'll try and locate his rightful owner."

"Oh." Mr. Davis nodded.

"Failing that, he'll go in front of a judge and become property of the state, most likely," the sheriff looked at me. "I reckon he'll be auctioned off come Monday. Not sure what kinda man would want a boy who like that though."

"I see." Mr. Davis coughed lightly and I was staring at him but he wouldn't even glance at me then.

"Now, there's the door, Mr. Davis." The sheriff lifted a finger, pointing with it. "And Tennessee is that way."

"Yeah, okay." Mr. Davis stood up and then he did give me a look, but I couldn't really tell what he was feeling just then.

He left me there, leaving the sheriff's station, and then I really did feel very alone. I suppose I was alone before too, but I hadn't really felt like it. I'd turned myself in and these people should have been arranging to send me home. They should have arrested Mr. Davis, but none of that was happening and it confused and frightened me.

"Heh!" Deputy Bluett grinned after my teacher was gone. "I don't suppose he'll be going back home anytime soon."

"It takes all kinds, don't it?" the sheriff laughed. "Mike, bring the negra in my office and call over to the courthouse, have Stanley come around with his kit."

"Sure thing," the deputy reached for his phone.

The sheriff was standing up, taking a drink from his big ceramic coffee cup. "Time to set things right around here."

I didn't know exactly what that meant and I thought about asking the deputy, but I got the impression that sheriff didn't want me talking at all and besides, I might not have wanted the answer anyways. Deputy Bluett wasn't on the phone but for a minute and then he was leading me towards an office adjacent to the main room. The door had a brass black engraved with the name Sheriff Lyle Miller.

"Sit down right there," the deputy pointed at a chair near the sheriff's desk and I sat.

I looked around the office and it wasn't real large, but it was comfortable enough. There were pictures on the walls, some awards it looked like. A bookcase and a computer beside the desk and an old sofa against the wall. A coffee pot was dripping in the corner and the sun was shining through the blue tinted windows behind Sheriff Miller as he sat in his big leather chair and looked at me. I smiled hopefully and then looked down. The man wasn't smiling back.

"You're in a heap of trouble," the sheriff said and that brought my eyes back up. "Mr. Davis told us that he picked you up hitchhiking. That he didn't know you were a runaway slave. Said he never laid eyes on you before yesterday."

"W-What?" I shook my head slowly.

"He's just an innocent man trying to do the right thing for a pretty negra who needed a ride," Sheriff Miller smiled. "Now, that story makes a whole lot more sense than yours. About how your math teacher stole you after school so he could drive all the way to California and set you free so you could get married."

"But ... Sir! That's what happened though!" I said.

"Quiet now," the sheriff warned me gently. "I don't like being interrupted."

I nodded my head.

"I'm thinking you ran away from your benefactor, found yourself all alone and out of money, a little lost maybe, and you let this Mr. Davis pick you up." He sucked at his cheek. "Probably figured you could get a little cash, maybe get a ride for a ways and say goodbye before he ever suspected a thing."

I opened my mouth and then closed it.

"Something went wrong though, didn't it? Maybe he forced himself on you, that it? Or did Mr. Davis catch you going through his pockets?" the sheriff asked and he wasn't looking for an answer. "Made you mad, huh? Whatever that man did, you didn't like it much. And you're tired of running away anyhow. You miss your bed maybe, miss that owner of yours and that home cooking, I bet. So you figured you'd just turn yourself in and blame an innocent white man for stealing you away."

I felt myself frightened by what Sheriff Miller was saying, angry too, and I wondered how he could possibly believe such a story as that. It had holes inside the holes. I was shaking and hot all over, my eyes growing damp and I wanted to say something, to explain that what I'd told the deputy was the truth. Every last word of it. But that sheriff didn't want me saying anything, that was clear. He just wanted me sitting there and listening while he destroyed my life.

"No?" Sheriff Miller gave me a blank look. "Well, without the computer we can't tell who you are. I suppose we could call Memphis, but that's three states away. I don't really care what happens in Tennessee all that much, you know? It's a little out of my jurisdiction."

The big deputy chuckled behind me and I swallowed hard.

"Any luck with the computer, Mike?" the sheriff asked.

"Nope, sorry Sheriff. That bitch's just being stubborn today," Deputy Bluett replied.

"ISIS does get like that, just when we need her the most, seems like," Sheriff Miller nodded and it was clear to me from their smiles that there wasn't a thing wrong with the computer. "So, tomorrow morning when you go in front of Judge Hastings, it's gonna be my word against yours. I have to tell you, Danielle, old Judge Hastings isn't gonna take the word of a queer bedroom negra over mine."

"Looks like Stanley's here, Sheriff," the deputy said and the other man looked up and smiled.

"Good. Get him in here," he nodded.

"Hey Lyle, what've you got here?" a nasel voice asked.

A bookish looking man was coming into the office carrying a grey case, like a briefcase, sort of, but thicker maybe and made out of metal. He stopped halfway into the office when he got a good look at me and I could tell what he was thinking from the immediate tent in the man's trousers. He didn't have any self-control.

"Close the door, Mike," Sheriff Miller said and he looked at Stanley. "I need this slave fixed."

"Okay. Got the paperwork?" the man asked and he was evidently a clerk of some kind, at least he gave that impression.

"Off the books, Stan."

"Off the books ... Heh ... Now, Lyle, you know..." The clerk licked his lips and glanced at Deputy Bluett and then at me.

"I'll take care of you. This one's going to be worth it, believe me," Sheriff Miller promised.

"I don't like it," Stanley shook his head. "You said that the last time and I only got a couple hundred. That's not enough, Lyle. Not for my job."

"I'll give you five hundred. No percentage this time," the sheriff said. "Straight up."

"Five hundred?" The thin man rubbed his nose. "Right now? You got it?"

"Stanley, come on ... You'll get it when I get it," the sheriff told him. "You know how it works."

"Yeah," Stanley sighed. "But after this, no more. It's too big of a risk."

"Hey, when opportunity knocks, someone's gotta answer the door," Sheriff Miller chuckled, relaxing now that the other man had agreed.

"Just remember, Lyle, there's all kinds of doors and you open the wrong one..." Stanley didn't finish his thought. "Alright, make some room there."

The man set his case on the sheriff's desk and opened it with clicks and rusty creaks. There was a machine inside, a device of some sort. He removed a pad, like the sort of cuff used to take a person's blood pressure, and he was attaching wires to it.

"Give me your left arm, girl," the clerk said.

"What are you going to do, sir?" I asked, unable to help myself because my heart was jumping in my chest.

"I'm going to remove the ultraviolet ink in your skin," he said without looking at my face. "Get rid of that little bar code you're wearing. It won't hurt."

"But ... My Master ... Mr. Reiser..." I swallowed hard and stared at the cuff and then looked at the sheriff.

"Don't worry, you'll get another one tomorrow," Sheriff Miller smiled at me. "But for tonight, shoot, you're nobody at all."

"You can't do this!" I blinked rapidly. "Sir, I told you the truth! I'm owned already. My Master is looking for me!"

"Don't move so much," the clerk warned me. "It takes a minute or two."

He was pushing some buttons, flipping some switches, and I thought I felt a little buzzing in my skin, but that was just my imagination. The dye from my tattoo was permanent in the sense that it wouldn't wear away or wash off, and I'd never really thought about how it might be removed. Now I was finding out. That machine was neutralizing the chemicals in my flesh, making it like I'd never been tattooed at all. I wouldn't belong to anyone after that, not so far as anybody could ever prove.

"Why are you doing this?" I asked the sheriff, feeling my eyes growing wet with something like panic. "You're a policeman!"

"Why?" the man chuckled. "Because you're worth a lot of money, that's why. Shit. Bedroom negra like you? A lot of money!"

I realized then that this wasn't the first time these people had done this to a slave. The sheriff was going to get me in front of the judge, tell him I was a runaway and get me auctioned off. I was a thousand miles from home, maybe two thousand, and nobody was going to care what I said. The sheriff would sell me, pocketing some of the money and sharing some with this Stanley person, his deputy too, I imagined. Maybe even the judge himself. He'd done it before and all he saw looking at me was dollar signs, especially since I was unique, special in my own way. Yeah, Sheriff Miller was going to make a lot of money off me probably and I was really wishing I hadn't turned myself in like I had. I should have called home first.

I tried to cling to the slim hope that maybe Mr. Davis would go back to Memphis, maybe tell someone what had happened. He could tell Mr. Reiser where I was, but he wouldn't. That would be admitting his crime and even if they weren't looking for him, Mr. Davis wouldn't ever say a word about me. He'd be thankful he could go back to his wife and kids, if he even could. Most likely the man wouldn't ever go back to Tennessee again. He couldn't take the chance, and so that left me completely alone and at the mercy of this corrupt sheriff.

"My Master is rich," I said slowly. "Really rich. His wife is Miss Corinne Ingersoll, from Mississippi."

"So?" The sheriff shrugged and that cuff buzzed in my head, feeling tighter. "Never heard of her."

"He'll pay to get me back, sir." I swallowed hard. "More than you can get from somebody else."

"And then I can just go lock myself up in my own jail?" Sheriff Miller looked at the other two men with a grin. "I don't think so."

"He'll pay a ... a reward," I said, thinking quickly. "A big one too, for finding me. No questions asked. I won't say anything about any of this, I swear. Nobody's gotta know anything except you found me."

"There, that's it." Stanley was turning off his machine. "She's clean as a whistle now."

"Please sir," I begged the sheriff and it looked like he was thinking about what I said. "I don't want any trouble. I just want to go home."

"Well, that's a good idea," the sheriff nodded and I felt a surge of hope rise beneath my breast.