Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2006 04:45:16 -0800 (PST)
From: Pete Brown <petebrownuk@yahoo.com>
Subject: Dray Slave, Part One

DRAY SLAVE

By Pete Brown.   petebrownuk @ yahoo.com
Read all of Pete's stories at
groups.yahoo.com/group/petebrownseroticstories


Author's Introduction:

One of the stories I've enjoyed writing most recently
is "Steve's First Job" (also posted to nifty
authoritarian), told as a series of e-mail exchanges
between Steve and his best buddy, Stu.  Stu has gone
off to college, but Steve is to work for his father to
"get to know the business from the bottom up".
Steve's first job, we learn, is to become a draymaster
in charge of a heavy dray making local deliveries - a
dray pulled by slaves.  Most of the story is about how
Steve "recruits" and then trains his coffle of new
dray slaves to turn them into a really crack team of
which he can be proud.  I like the story because  it
gave me a chance to explore new ways of telling a
tale, and because it also fits neatly into my current
themes of a "different" future USA, where there has
been a second Civil War (see also, for example, "The
Spoils Of War").

Amongst the stories by other authors that I personally
enjoy and re-read is the pair called "My Buddy" and
"The Other Side Of The Coin" by  Bill Smith and George
Edington, respectively.  This pair of tales tells of
the purchase of a newly-enslaved man from the
perspective both of the slave, and the buyer.
Intrigued by this, I decided to do something similar:
"Dray Slave", therefore, tells the story in "Steve's
First Job" from a third point of view- that of one of
the dray slaves himself.  My only problem in writing
the story has been in giving the slave a name:
"Steve" has a peculiar resonance for me, and regular
readers will know that I generally select this name
for the "hero" of my stories - but that name has been
"taken" by the trainer/driver already, and so,
unusually, this is "Dave's" story!

Pete Brown

DRAY SLAVE

Part One

They captured me after the siege of Raleigh.  I
suppose I was lucky really - some of the battles in
what became known as the  Second Civil War were pretty
dramatic.  And I suppose that civil wards bring out
the worst in people - there are just too many
similarities between the two sides, and they know each
other too well.  They treated us pretty well, all
things considered, though - it was hard, in the
immediate aftermath of that bloody siege, to find
enough food and water for the civilians, let alone for
captured Marines like me, but the Southern commander
must have been a pretty decent type as they managed to
scrape up enough rations to make sure we got at least
one meal a day.  It was pretty humiliating being
disarmed, though, and then made to just sit there
inside the Stadium - well, I suppose they didn't have
anywhere else to put us, and with a few of their
soldiers around the perimeter of the field with
submachine guns it was easy to keep the couple of
thousand of us together, with no chance of us
escaping.

As you might expect, though, they were keen to get us
shipped out to a proper prisoner of war camp as soon
as possible, and after three days we were loaded into
trucks and driven across the South to a "proper" camp
on the outskirts of Charleston.  No wonder those
Southerners won - they had evidently put a whole lot
of effort into planning things, and they even had this
big camp ready for all the prisoners they clearly
thought they'd capture.  It was a bit like a proper
military base, really - well, I suppose it might have
actually been one at some point, as there were rows of
barracks huts neatly lined up, a big mess hall, and
all the sort of facilities you  expect to find like a
gym, medical centre, and so on - the only thing that
was missing was a PX, which turned out not to be a
problem for us as we didn't have any money anyway!  It
looked really well run - as our truck went in through
the gates we saw the usual "bull" things that you see
at all bases - neat signs, a row of marker stones
along the edge of the roadway painted freshly white,
and of course men:  man marching and drilling, doing
exercises, and generally getting on with everyday
life.  Most of them were in some sort of uniform,
although it was obvious from the mixture of stuff that
this was a holding base for prisoners from several
units.

They adopted a pretty simple way of running the place,
too - all  us prisoners were just herded in through
the gates, and then we were left to our own devices.
We were all soldiers, though, and we were soon sorted
out - the place was run by one of our own Colonels
who'd been captured a lot earlier, and he maintained
normal army discipline.  Those of us who'd lost most
of our uniforms were found some bits and pieces of
fresh clothing, there was an orderly hut assignment to
prevent over crowding, and the Colonel insisted that
we drill and so on every day and respect the officers.
 He had all us "newbies" line up on our first day
there and told us that it was, after all, probable
that we'd be freed very soon as it could only be a
matter of a few weeks before the industrial might of
the North triumphed, and then we'd all be going back
to our regular units.  So we needed to obey our
officers and sergeants, and he wanted us to maintain a
"tight ship" so we'd be ready:  he didn't want any
slovenliness, or for us to allow our bodies to go to
soft.  So we'd be exercised and drilled, and he told
us that if there was any breach of discipline we'd be
punished, by his officers - a small area of the camp
and one of the huts had been designated as a jail, and
we'd be sent there if there was even the slightest
suggestion that we were not behaving like proper
soldiers; and, of course, once we  were freed and back
in our regular units,  we'd be subject to normal
military discipline again and might be reduced in
rank, or lose pay., or something.

It worked well, really -  we were all a pretty
disciplined lot, and we were used to living on a base.
 It was hard not to be able to leave at all to go
downtown to a bar, as we would have done normally,
but, all in all, it wasn't a bad life.  You got used
to seeing the big mesh fence all around the place, the
rows of barbed wire on top, and the guards patrolling
with guns immediately outside, but  I suppose that's
what prisoner of war camps have always been like.,
Mind you, given that we were still in the USA, I do
think they could have put a few phones in and let us
make collect calls to our folks back home - it wasn't
a particular problem for me as I was divorced and
didn't get on with my bitch of an ex-wife, but for
some of the guys, with wives and families, it was
really hard to be so close, and yet so far away.

None of us anticipated the total collapse of the
North, of course.  As I said, the Colonel had told us
that we might expect to be released within a couple of
months when the South collapsed, but instead of that,
it was the North who just caved in.  Those sneaky
Southern bastards made some deal or other with the
Arabs, the North's oil was cut off, and that was
basically it:  a modern war is a mechanical war, and
without oil, nothing  moves.  So there we were ,
prisoners of war, all nice and snug in our camp,
drilling, exercising, and, I suppose making the best
we could of things.

Some time later it was the Colonel himself gave us all
the bad news - he had us lined up neatly on the parade
ground and the Southerners had even given him a PA
system so we could all hear - there were, after all, a
couple of thousand of us at least.  He began by giving
us the facts as he knew them :  the news that the
North had capitulated, and when there were angry
murmurs and movements in the crowd, he barked at us to
maintain the discipline  that the army expected from
soldiers.  Then he went on to give us the really bad
news - well, the war had all started over "States'
rights" as you probably know,  and the desire of the
South to reintroduce  slavery, and now that they'd
won, that was what was going to happen .  And it had
been decided by the New Congress that all those who
had been guilty of participating in the war were  to
be enslaved:  and that meant us!  There was a lot more
muttering, and some shouting then, but the Colonel's a
pretty tough man and I think it was his iron will that
maintained discipline that day.  He went on to say
that as slaves we no longer had any rights at all, and
that of course meant that if the Southerners wanted to
kill us, they could - there was no longer any fear of
them being guilty of war crimes or anything, as under
our country's new laws, slaves were property and could
be treated in any way that their owners wanted.  He
advised us that the best thing to do was to maintain
our discipline, as good soldiers:  that way, we would
at least stay alive.  And as he pointed out, "whilst
there's life, there's hope."

After that, of course, we all stood around talking,
and some of the guys were in favour of rushing the
guards and making a mass break.  There weren't all
that many of them, and there were a couple of thousand
of us, and it seemed likely that if we overpowered
them there'd be some loss of life, but that the
overwhelming majority of us would get out.  Some of us
got together that night to plan how we'd go about it,
but the Colonel heard about it and I, and some of the
other guys who'd been planning it, were summoned to
his presence.

"We should all be proud of the fighting spirit that
you men exhibit", he told us.  "But one of the things
that an officer learns is that it's necessary to
consider the consequences of any planned action.  I
don't doubt that you could overpower the guards here
with some casualties on our part, but what then?"

We all looked a bit puzzled, and he went on "We've all
been classified as slaves, remember?  We're no longer
soldiers or even civilians - we're slaves.  We have no
rights.  And the penalty for escaping slaves is always
death, they tell me.  So gradually you'd be hunted
down and, one by one, put to death."

"Sir, they can't do that to us...", one of the guys
protested, "It's contrary to the universal declaration
of human rights."

The Colonel shut him up promptly.  "Oh yes they can!
We no longer have 'human rights' as we're slaves.
I've read the laws the New Congress has passed and it
makes it very clear that the penalty for escaping
slaves is death.  And any citizen has the right to
shoot such a slave.... So what are you going to do if
you get through the fence?  You've got no money, no
papers, nothing.  You'd be on foot, here in the South,
and I guess a lot of the folks around here are not
very kindly disposed to us Northerners, so they'd
relish the opportunity of taking revenge.  And even if
you did get out of the immediate area, what then?
Even assuming you did get back to your home, it
wouldn't alter things as slavery is now the norm right
across the USA - you'd still be escaped slaves in Des
Moines, or New York, or San Francisco, or wherever.
It would only need a neighbour to turn you in, or for
a suspicious cop to stop you and ask to see your
papers, and you'd be in the same position."

He paused for breath, and went on "It's a tough
decision, I know, but it seems to me that we have very
little choice:  be slaves, or be killed."

Well, after that some of us met to talk about the
whole escape thing again, and some of us were still in
favour of getting away - we didn't want to be slaves,
and even though it was risky, it seemed worth it to
break out and then do our best to get across the
border to Mexico, or Canada, or somewhere - some of us
believed that in the chaos that would be reigning
around the place, it might be our only chance to give
the Southerners and the cops and everyone the slip.
The Colonel got wind of this meeting, though, and
called me and some of the other ringleaders into his
hut again.

"I've told you that this is suicidal, and  I won't
countenance it", he told us.  "I won't have my men
needlessly laying down their lives.  I order you to
abandon this escape attempt, and to respect normal
military discipline."

"But we're no longer soldiers, sir!", I reminded him.
"....As we've been declared to be slaves - you told us
that yourself.  So we can do what we think best, and
we no longer have to obey your orders...."

I thought he was going to have apoplexy!  But there
wasn't much he could do about it, was there?  If we
were never going back to our regular units, we had
nothing to fear from military discipline.   So we
carried on planning, but a bit more secretly this time
 But we found out that  he had regular dealings with
the camp commandant, as the moment they began taking
us away from the camp in small lots, us conspirators
were  amongst the first to be taken, and so the whole
scheme collapsed.

I suppose we all knew they'd started  slave trading.
Men would be called over to the admin block, and
mostly never came out again - we saw the trucks
leaving, heading for the Interstate, and it was awful
to think of those guys being taken off to work in the
factories, or mines, or fields, or wherever.  But what
could we do?  There no longer seemed to be the
enthusiasm for  a "suicide" attack on the guards
followed by a mass break out, and so we would have to
put up with what was in store for us.

I was actually working out when a guard came over and
told me to go over to the admin block, so I knew my
time had come:  I was dripping with sweat, as I really
like to keep fit and wanted to go and collect my stuff
and have a shower, but the guard told me to forget it
as if I was selected to go that day, I wouldn't be
taking any of my things with me anyway.

I'd never been inside the admin block before, and the
guard shepherded me and about twenty other guys into a
large bare room.    We stood there, in what remained
of our uniforms - in my case my combat boots, camo
trousers, and a T as I'd been working out -  and two
men came in, with a couple of armed guards.  One could
only have been a kid - eighteen or so, I'd guess, but
the other was in his mid-thirties.  They were both
smartly dressed in suits and big Fedora hats, and I
suppose one might even have said the kid was  sharply
dressed in what were the current season's fashion
(well, what looked as if they'd become the current
season's styles, from what I remember before the war
began).  One of the guard snapped at us to form a
straight line by the long wall, and the older guy said
calmly "No, not all of them - we don't want any
niggas."

It sounded so shocking, to hear the "N" word used like
that, but he went on "Our experience is that these
Northern niggas never acclimatise properly to being
slaves.  They're so damned uppity, as they're so used
to demanding their rights and so on.  They just can't
get used to the fact that they haven't got any rights,
none at all.  So it's preferable to have only whiteys
- they learn to adjust quicker, we find ."

I suppose that was the first time I'd heard anyone
call a group of men "whiteys", but as time went on I
was to learn that this was the terminology regularly
used in the slave trade:  whiteys and "spanics'" -
Hispanics - were highly prized as they were considered
to be versatile and suitable for many types of work,
niggas came next as they were thought to be strong and
highly adaptable for heavy manual labour; and the rest
were lumped together into the categories of "chinks"
(Asiatics in general), and "'breeds " - short for
half-breeds - slaves of mixed parentage.  It was, I
suppose, my first introduction to the way in which
free folk now perceived their fellow men, once the tag
of "slave" had been applied to them.

The guard dismissed the five blacks from amongst us,
and the rest of us - fifteen now, I guess, just stood
there.

The two guys in the smart clothes then walked slowly
up and down the line, looking at us intently.  Then
the older one said to the guard that he wanted to take
a closer look at us, and that he wanted us to strip!

I thought at first I'd misheard - I mean, these men
looked as if they were selecting those of us they
wanted for a work assignment, and you don't expect to
have to take your clothes off for that, do you?  But
the guard rapped out that we should strip off, and
when one of us objected, he touched him with something
and the next moment the guy was writhing around on the
floor.  Two of the others went to help him, and the
guard shouted out "That's the first lesson you new
slaves need to learn - a slave prod hurts!  And that
was only at half power - at full power it can knock
you out, induce vomiting, cause muscle spasms.... As
it is, your buddy is just hurt temporarily, but I'd
advise you all to take care!  Now, do as I've fucking
well told you, and get naked!"

We all felt a bit awkward, striping off like that, I
suppose.  Not that we weren't used to it - I mean, in
the Marines, you spend a lot of time in the barracks
and communal showers and so on, so there's nothing
unusual in being naked with your buddies.  But when
there are other guys in the room who are clothed - and
pretty sharply dressed, too - then it's all a bit
different.  And when you stop for a moment and
consider that the reason you're doing this is so that
they can inspect you - inspect you as a slave, as they
want to choose some of you to go and work for them -
then it's a wholly different experience.

Fifteen of us stood there then, mostly in our standard
army issue cotton boxer shorts, and the two men went
up and down the line again.  I heard the older one say
to the younger "This is a pretty good bunch, actually
- when  I called ahead I told them to line up big
strong guys. It's  not so tough pulling the dray
generally, until you get to an uphill stretch.  But
it's the loading and unloading - you need a bit of
power, to haul all those big fridge-freezers into and
out of the customer's home.  And, anyway, I think it
looks best if the  slaves are pretty evenly matched -
it looks less satisfactory to have an odd jumble of
all shapes and sizes when they're all meant to be
working together."

The younger one cut in "Yes, but how shall I pick? "

"Well it doesn't matter all that much.  I also said I
only wanted men between their early twenties and early
thirties, and they seem to have done a good job as all
these seem to fit the bill.  Much younger than that
and they haven't put on enough muscle - rather like
you, Steve!  I know you did a lot of athletics and
stuff at High School, but a man doesn't really put on
power until he's in his twenties.  And you don't want
them too old, as we  need to get a reasonable working
life out of them - we're going to spend a lot of money
training them and stuff, and we'll need to recoup our
investment."

The younger guy - Steve, I supposed - nodded, and the
older one continued "And there's another advantage to
having them all much the same age - it helps them to
bond.  Remember, you've got to put together a real
team if you're going to get the most work out of them,
and a team forms best if the guys all like each other.
 It's easier for them to bond if they're much the same
age - especially as we want them to have a healthy sex
life."

I listened to all  this with interest.  No, that's not
the right word.  At one level it was interesting, but
at another, it was scary.  No, not even scary -
fucking outrageous!  These men were going along and
choosing us as if we were some sort of commodity, not
real men.  A small bead of sweat trickled down my back
as I thought that this was, presumably, what being a
slave was all about - free men could jut come and pick
and choose you, and you had no say in the matter.  I
mean, what was all this fuck about pulling a dray and
unloading stuff?  I was a trained soldier, a proud
marine, capable of fighting for our country....  No,
"their" country, now, I suppose: the country of the
free, of which it seemed I was no longer a part.
Still, they wanted us to have a good sex life - so
perhaps it wasn't all bad!  There was no sex in the
POW camp as women prisoners were somewhere else, and
it was a fair time since I'd managed to pick up a
woman and fuck.

They went down the line again and this time the older
guy - who I heard "Steve" call Jon - advised him to
"weed out the chinks".  I knew one of the guys - he
was in my unit and a fucking good soldier, someone
who'd you'd really want watching your back when times
got tough.  He was third generation, as his
grandparents had come here from Laos or Vietnam or
somewhere after some skirmish in the twentieth
century, and he was a s American as I was.  But I
heard the older guy tell the younger one "Don't bother
with the chinks - although they work hard, and these
are right up to the spec we set for weight and
everything, I don't think they look as good as a a set
of proper whiteys, and we have to remember that the
reputation of the Company depends on not only
delivering a good service to our customers, but on
being seen to do so:  a set of pure whiteys is much
more exciting for the customers."

We were down to about twelve of us now, and the two
men went along the line again.  This time the older
guy said "Now, Steve, take a really close look:
although they're quite closely matched in height, some
of them are a bit out from the norm... You can get two
same height guys, but one has a long body and short
legs, the other big long legs and a short body.... We
need a good balance, consistency, powerful legs for
those hills, but a good strong body for the loading
and unloading.  So why don't we eliminate those guys
with very long bodies, or very long legs?"

Once more the two of them came down the line, and
rejected some of us.  I don't know whether I was glad
to still be there, or if I should have hoped that I'd
been rejected.  It sounded like I would still be kept
with some of my buddies, at least, and whilst there's
a group of soldiers together, there's always a faint
hope that we might escape, I suppose.  After all, once
things had settled down a bit after the war, and we
were used to the little ways of slavery, how hard
could it be just to slip away and melt into the crowd
and make our way north to Canada, or south to Mexico?

Finally, there were ten of us left, and the young guy,
Steve,  said to the older one "Now what, Jon?  We've
been up and down this line several times, and they all
look pretty much the same to me now!  We've eliminated
all the obvious ones.  But we only need nine slaves,
you said, so how do we pick?  Toss a coin, or
something?"

"Steve, there is one thing we haven't yet judged...."

"And what's that?  They all much pretty much alike to
me - same height, same shape, nice and muscular,
pretty good looking bunch, I'd say...."

"Steve, you're forgetting one thing - the uniform!
What else do we care about?"  As he said this, the man
Jon turned to one of the guards and said "Get them
totally naked, will you?"

"Right, you guys, drop those boxers!", he snapped at
once.  I went to protest, but it was just as well I
was a bit slow off the mark as a guy at the other end
of the line who did was soon writhing on the floor as
the guard used his prod on him.  "Now, unless you all
want a touch of the prod, get naked", he snarled, and
we all did.  I pushed my boxers down and stepped out
of them, and just stood there in my army boots and my
dog tags.

Look, I know I've told you that I'm used to being
naked around the other blokes in my unit, and, anyway,
I've got absolutely nothing to be ashamed of - I've
never had anything to even be concerned about when I
compare myself with the other guys in the showers, and
even that bitch of an ex-wife never complained about
the size of my dick!  But it's one thing to be naked
with your buddies, or your wife, and quite another
when you're a slave, being inspected - and selected,
even - on the size of your dick!  I felt a mixture of
shame, and anger, and embarrassment:  shame, at being
used like this, at having failed as a soldier; anger
that these guys could order us to do this, and then
treat us just as if we were some sort of prize stock,
who they were selecting on the basis of their
physiques (well, I suppose that's what we were, really
- to them, we were just stock!);  and embarrassment  -
well, I don't know why I was embarrassed really, as,
after all, none of this was really my fault.  It was
the fucking system, after all, the system that could
turn good, honest marines, free Americans, into
slaves.  It was these Southerners who ought to be
embarrassed, embarrassed at treating other human
beings in this way.

They went up and down he line, though, and at one
point I thought that the older one was even going to
reach out and touch my dick!  If he had, slave prod or
no slave prod, I'd have hit him, I can tell you - no
one messes with my dick!  I didn't even really like
women touching it,, well, except to give me a good
blow job, of course.

One of the guys in the line-up was in my platoon, and
it was no surprise, actually, when  Steve and Jon
picked him out and told the guard he was unsuitable.
He was a bit of a joke in the barracks, actually, as
although he was big and tough and a hard fighter like
the rest of us, his dick just wasn't as well developed
as the rest of him and he was strangely out of
proportion.  I don't suppose it mattered much
normally, as everyone knows that a lot of the
difference goes away when you're at full wood, and he
was known as being a bit of a stud, actually, always
pulling some woman or other  on the weekends, and so
there couldn't be all that much wrong with him.  But
whatever these "uniforms" were they were talking
about, his small dick seemed to make a difference to
those selecting us, and so he was told to dress and go
back to the camp.

The rest of us - nine, now, were left standing there,
and the men Steve and Jon went off to do some
paperwork - to actually "buy" us, I suppose.  I know
it sounds odd to be using that word when you're
dealing with men, and not horses, or cattle, or dogs,
or something, but that's what it was:  they were off
to pay money, and then we'd "be" theirs - they'd own
us!  Somehow, just thinking about this sent a shiver
down my spine.   We went to pick up our clothes and
put them back on, but the guard snapped "Stay naked!
Who the fuck told you it was OK to get dressed?"

There was a bit of muttering from some of the guys,
but the even though there were only two guards, they
had slave prods and there was an awful lot of bare
skin around to aim them at, so we just did as we were
told, and stood there.  It wasn't as if it was cold or
anything, but you feel pretty foolish, actually,
standing around like that bare-assed.  I mean, usually
when you're naked you're getting into or out of bed,
or you're in or out of the shower.  You don't usually
stand there with a bunch of other guys with your
clothes all piled up behind each of you, just wearing
army boots, do you?  A horrible thought started to
come to me - well, I'm only twenty three, and you know
how it is at that age: you have a lot of erections!
Suppose I began to throw a wood now?  What would I do?
 I know it's perfectly natural and everything, but
that's not the point, is it?    Even when you live a
bit of a communal life as a marine you don't get hard
in front of your buddies.  The problem is that the
more  I thought about it, the more I thought I could
feel my dick starting to swell with blood.  You
probably all know how it is - you get that little
feeling of excitement, and then your dick starts to
stir, moving away from your balls just ever so
slightly.... Oh no, fuck me, please don't let this
happen to me here....

I was  only saved, I think, by the two men coming
back, and they showed the guards a pile of papers -
our bill of sale, I suppose- and one of them then
snapped at us "Right, you slaves!  Line up, as you're
off, out of here..."

One or two of the guys started to ask about picking up
their clothes again, and their stuff from the
barracks, but the guards only laughed. "You're fucking
slaves!  You don't own anything now, and your new
owners don't care.  You may as well keep your boots on
for now, though... Now, do as you're fucking well
told, and line up..."

It's odd, isn't it?  There were only two of them and
we could have rushed them and overpowered him.  Nine
of us, big, tough, trained fighters, and only two of
them?  And even if one or two of us did feel the prod
thing, seven would still be enough to flatten them,
and we'd then have their guns...  But somehow I think
we were still all acting like soldiers - we were used
to obeying orders, however bizarre they at first
seemed.  So we lost what was probably our last chance
of escaping, and I wonder how things might have turned
out differently if we'd just been able to put our
inhibitions aside - once we'd got a gun or two, we
could have perhaps helped everyone to escape, and with
a couple of thousand of us spreading out, it surely
would have been hard to recapture us all and some of
us might have achieved a "free" life again.  But there
you are - if you don't take your chances when they're
presented to you, you deserve to lose out, I suppose.

The guards told us to "about face" and march out of
the door of the admin place, and as we went into the
sunlight it struck me for the first time that
everything really now was different for me.  If being
naked inside and being inspected and selected as if I
was an animal was bad enough, being naked outside was
really strange - especially as we could see our fellow
POWs still marching around and exercising as normal,
just as if nothing had happened.  But it all had
changed for the nine of us, we realised - there in
front of us, on a flat-topped truck, was a cage, and
we were commanded to climb up onto the truck and get
into it.    I was wary of the slave prods by now, but
one of the guys started to scream and shout and say
that they had no business to take us out of a POW camp
as we had rights as prisoners.  They must have turned
the power on the prod thing up to "full", as he
screamed briefly and fell to the ground, and lay there
twitching and not moving.

Seeing this, the rest of us reluctantly clambered up
onto the truck and went into the cage - it wasn't very
big, and we all tried to space ourselves around the
edges of it to avoid touching each other - well, I
mean, guys don't like having their dicks swinging into
the are flesh of other guys, do they?  It was a really
tight fit, though, and all our precautions came to
nothing as the guards picked up our fallen companion
and almost threw him into the cage with us - they were
holding him under his pits, and he was coming around
and kind of half staggering, and then they gave him a
big shove and pushed him in - and that caused us all
to bang together and half fall over, and I got to know
for the first time what it would be like to have to be
in such intimate contact with my buddies.

We all hated it as the two men got into the cab and
the truck drove off - for one thing the wind was hot
against our bare skin, and the sun was strong and I
felt sure I was going to get sunburned.   But we were
like animals in that cage, animals being carried we
knew not where, without having any say in matters all.
 It wasn't so bad on the open highway, but as we got
more in towards the city, there started to be folks
about on the sidewalks and getting in and out of their
cars in the strip malls, and they all turned to look
at us and we felt so ashamed and tried to cover
ourselves with our hands - not all that easy when
there's so little room to manoeuvre.  And a big man
like me feels ashamed at having to cover himself like
that - for one thing, I need both hands, and I think I
look silly.  But you can't go exposing yourself to all
and sundry, including women and kids, can you?

Fortunately it seemed we didn't need to go right into
the centre of town, as we turned off into an
industrial estate, and then in through the gates of
what looked like a pretty standard sort of
distribution depot - there was a huge warehouse
shed-like structure with long distance trucks lined up
against one side being unloaded directly into it, some
sort of offices block, and another shed-like place,
which we stopped outside of.  The two men, Steve and
Jon, got out from the cab, leaving the driver, and
went into the office block.  We all stood there
looking out through the bars of the cage - well, we
couldn't do much else, could we - until they emerged
some minutes later with several other men.  These were
all dressed in what we came to know as the uniforms of
the company - dark green work shorts, a paler green
short-sleeved shirt, and tan boots, and we saw that
from their leather belts as well as the usual two-way
radios there were a number of other things hanging,
including the slave prods.  At a command the men got
out their prods and came and stood menacingly near the
doors of the cage, which was then opened and we were
ordered out.

It's hard, actually, moving around and doing things
like getting down off a truck when you're naked -
you're just not used to the way your dick and balls
fly around, and you have to be careful.  But soon all
nine of us were there, surrounded by the guards with
their prods, and we were then led off into the smaller
of the two shed-like buildings.  Inside it was cooler
and dim, and we were led along a path in-between sets
of barred cell-like things on both sides.  We were
herded into one of them, and the door was banged shut
and locked.

The two men who'd "bought" us, Steve and Jon, stood
there outside and they dismissed the other guards.
Then we heard Jon tell the younger guy, Steve, to
check out the water supply as "These men are your
team, and you're responsible for them.  You need to
make sure they'll be OK over night."    We watched as
the young guy reached through the bars and flicked at
something on the wall, and we heard the sound of
running water.  And then both men turned and walked
off, ignoring our shouts demanding to know what the
fuck was going on.    We looked around ourselves then
and found that ,apart from the water spigot that the
young guy had tried out, our cell was completely
featureless.  There was straw on the floor - yes, real
straw, just as you'd find in a stables or something -
but otherwise, that was that:  underneath the straw it
was bare concrete ,the walls were concrete, and there
seemed no possibility of breaking down or forcing the
barred door.  It was dim and dark as there was only
light filtering in from the corridor.

We all stood there, wondering what the fuck was going
to happen to us, until we heard voices - men's voices,
some laughter, but generally sounding very tired, and
we guessed that some of the other cells were being
filled with prisoners like us.  We stood there, trying
to keep a reasonable distance from each other, and all
the time listening to try to understand what was
happening elsewhere in the place - the men we'd heard
being put into the other cells seemed to be getting
fed as there was the chink of metal containers and
stuff, but no one came and fed us.  Eventually, the
lights in the passage way went out, and we realised it
was time to sleep - but the cell was really small, and
it was really difficult to get sorted out and lie down
in the darkness without touching your buddies.  And
unless you've actually tried sleeping on straw, you
can't imagine how uncomfortable it is as the straw has
sharp ends to it, that stick into your naked skin.
Still, at least it meant we were a bit insulated from
the hard concrete of the floor.

You couldn't help being in close contact with your
buddies as during the night a lot of the guys thrashed
around in their sleep as I guess they were worried
about what was going to happen to us, and that meant
we were thrown together and I couldn't help but feel
the stiff dicks of some of them pushed against me.
Still, in the dark, you didn't know which of your
buddies it was, so it wasn't so bad, I suppose - I
mean, when you're sharing a tent out on manoeuvres you
know the other guys throw woods as you yourself do,
but at least then you've got your uniforms on, or at
least your boxers!

I did get to sleep eventually, but was roughly shaken
awake by one of the other guys.  There, at the gate to
our cell were the two men from the day before, and
they were shouting at us to get moving.  It was only
as I scrambled to my feet that I realised I was erect
- well, most guys are in the morning, aren't they?
And although I hated the other guys seeing me like
this, most of them were, too, so it wasn't all that
bad. We were told to have a good long drink from the
spigot as we wouldn't get any more that morning, and I
felt utterly humiliated as it was low down on the wall
and I had to kneel there, sucking away at it, knowing
that all the other guys could see my ass.  Still, I
suppose it was the same for them, when it was their
turn.

One of the guys very respectfully asked the men
outside when we were going to be fed, as we hadn't had
any food since the POW camp the day before, and was
told to shut up, as "slaves get fed when we think they
need it, not when they want it!".

As they unlocked the cage door and told us to file out
into the corridor, I wondered what on earth my new
life was going to be like.

End Of Part One