Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 22:33:48 -0700 (PDT)
From: Pete Brown <petebrownuk@yahoo.com>
Subject: The Slave Show, Part  Fifteen

THE SLAVE SHOW

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

Part  Fifteen

I reckon that if I'd woken up in time I might have
fucked Joe that Sunday morning Sunday morning, but I
overslept and Dan shook me awake.  He sounded really
pissed off!

"Fucking hell, Steve - you were ranting on at me
yesterday about fucking Julie, and here you are wit
your cock stuffed up Joe!"

"I haven't fucked him.  We were just lying together,
to keep warm.... We always did this in the army."

"Pull the other one, Steve!  They'd have thrown you
out of the army if they found you with your cock up a
mate's bum!  You were fucking..."

"No, sir, honest, we weren't....", Joe added.  "I'd
have liked Master Steve to fuck me, but he was
asleep...."

"If I want your views, slave, I'll ask for them!", Dan
rapped.  And then he went on at me again.  "And, in
any case, even if you weren't fucking Joe, it looks
like it!  What would have happened if Julie had come
out here with mugs of tea for you both, and found you
like this?  Or if Shane had got up early and had come
out here looking for 'Uncle Steve' to play with?"

"Oh grow up, Dan.  Blokes sleep together all the time.
 It's not necessarily sexual - I bet Julie's magazines
tell her that all the time.  And Shane wouldn't know
what it was all about anyway...."

"Stop making excuses, Steve!  You were quick enough to
go at me for a bit of cuddling in bed.  It seems that
what's sauce for the goose is not sauce for the
gander...."

"It's different, Dan!  Joe's a slave.  Free men can
use slaves sexually and it's just business as usual,
you know that."

"Oh, so it's OK for you to fuck Joe, is it?  So that's
what you'll be doing every night?"

"Dan, no.  And look, let's talk about this calmly
later, shall we?  Now I need to get up and piss...."

I got out of the sleeping bag then, and waved my
erection at Dan.  "See, this hasn't fucked recently!
Unless you think I'm some sort of super stud who can
fuck Joe one minute and still be ramrod solid...."

I don't know what might have happened next, but I
heard Julie calling "Steve, Joe... Breakfast!  What
are you doing out there, Dan?"  It sounded as she was
coming closer - and to my horror  I saw her appear and
peek over Dan's shoulder.

"Steve!", she almost screamed.  "I told you about that
last week!  Now get that disgusting thing put away in
your boxers, and come in and eat, before the breakfast
gets cold."

Well, Dan kept glaring at me over breakfast, but we
had to set out for the regular Sunday football game
and of course we took Joe along too, as we weren't
really sure if he could be "trusted" with Julie and
the kids yet.  I demanded to play now as I was a free
man, and had a really good time, and we got Joe to act
as a linesman - an unheard of luxury in our
knock-about matches, where it was sometimes difficult
to even get a referee!

As soon as we were in the showers after the match one
of the blokes came up and rested his hand on my bum as
he always did, but I was ready for him:  quick as a
flash I had him pinned against the tiled wall of the
showers, and my hand grabbed one of his buttocks.
"Haven't you heard?  I'm not a slave, who you can take
liberties with? If you want to stroke my bum, it's a
game two can play.... Now, do you like me feeling your
bum?  Shall I go a bit deeper, and find out what your
arsehole's like?"

"I'm sorry, Steve.... I forgot...", he muttered, and
our team mates were all killing themselves with
laughter as they reckoned it was better than watching
the nude slave wrestling on TV.

Joe was a really nice bloke, actually - he fitted in
to the tiny house as best he could, just as I had when
I first came.  He thanked Julie for the delicious
roast she'd done at lunchtime, always said "please"
and "thank you", and never dived in and helped himself
until after Julie, Dan and I had taken our pick of the
vegetables and so on.  And he did one thing that I'd
never done, too:  after lunch instead of slumping in
front of the TV as Dan and I did, he went out into the
kitchen and insisted on doing the washing up so that
Julie could rest.

They seemed to be chatting away, and I heard Julie say
"I hope boys aren't going to bother you, Joe."

"Oh no, ma'am.  I like kids.  If things had gone right
with me and the wife, I'd have had some nippers of my
own, I reckon."

"Why were you Indentured, Joe?  You seem like a nice
gentle man.  I can't believe you did violent crime..."

"No, ma'am.  It was my bitch of a wife - oh, sorry,
ma'am.... My wife.  She got fed up with me and ran off
with another bloke, then said it was all my fault, and
sued for divorce - and you know what the divorce
courts are like these days:  they always side with the
woman.  And she told them I was hiding assets, as
there was so little money for her.  I wasn't, of
course, as she was such a spendthrift she'd already
almost bled me dry, but they believed her and said
that as I had hidden assets, they'd indenture me to
make up for it.  So ten years later, here I still
am...."

"Joe, that's terrible!  How long are you indentured
for?"


"Life, ma'am.  I'm a proper slave, I reckon, as I'll
never be free.  When I still didn't 'reveal' where my
money was kept, my ex-wife went back to the Court and
persuaded them that I was in contempt of the whole
legal system.... And the Court got nasty, and here I
am.  Even if I'd got any money, which I don't have, it
wouldn't make any difference."

"Oh Joe, that's awful..."

"Well it's not so bad.  The Captain is a good owner -
well, at least as long as I keep winning.  It's a nice
house he's got - genuine Georgian with a couple of
acres of gardens.  And he's got a slave to cook for
us, and I'm kind of his hobby.  I reckon things could
be a lot worse, even if I was free.  I mean, I've got
no worries:  as long as I do what the Captain says I
don't have to worry about paying bills, or any stuff
like that."

"But you're not free, Joe."

"Well how free was I when I was married?  I used to go
off every morning to work, worry my guts out about
whether I was bringing in enough new business and
stuff like that, then go home and have nag, nag, nag
about the lack of money from the bitch -  sorry again,
ma'am.  And if I was lucky I got two weeks off in
Benedorm in a cheap hotel....   I mean, ma'am, it's a
bit like Master Dan and Master Steve, isn't it - they
have to work their guts out, and they have all the
worry.... Not that I'm saying you nag, ma'am, please
don't think that.  But they don't have any choices in
their lives, do they?  I mean, they can't decide not
to go to work tomorrow, and to go off on holiday?  Or
chuck it all in and go backpacking around the world,
or whatever?   And I bet Master Dan is really worried
about this house ,and the bills, and whether the roof
is going to leak, or whatever, and whether he's got
enough saved to pay for it.  It's only the rich that
have choices in this life, I reckon, ma'am, and for
the rest of us, if you've got a good owner, then life
a a slave is a whole lot less stressful than life as a
free man."

I went out into the kitchen then, as I thought Joe
might be upsetting Julie as it would make her think
about Dan and his debts.  "Well one thing that's
different as a slave, Joe", I smiled.  "A free man
doesn't have to prance around in front of crowds, in
the nude!".  Julie smiled a bit, and we left it at
that.

Monday morning saw Dan off to London as usual, and I
made Joe get up and we walked with him to the station,
then went on a really long, gut-wrenching run to get
us in shape.  I told Julie to take the morning off
when she'd dropped Shane to nursery school as Joe and
I would clean the house - well, I had Joe do it, as he
seemed to know about stuff like that and it amused me
to sit there and read the paper as he dusted and
washed up and ran the vac over the place.  Then I
"supervised" him to do press-ups and jumping jacks out
in the garden, and Julie came home looking really
refreshed after a morning off.

I wanted to go into London that afternoon, and I had
to borrow the money for the fare from Julie (who was
scraping her purse to find enough, and muttered about
the quality of the food going down later in the week
as she's run out o house keeping!).  Then she said
"And what about Joe?"

"Well he could watch the TV...."

"No.  He's too big in the house all afternoon.  I tell
you what, though - poor Nicola James down the road
can't cope with the garden:  her husband's had a heart
attack and they can't find a casual gardener who just
will do an odd day's work:  they all want yearly
contracts!  You could send Joe around there.... It
would keep him occupied, and would be really
neighbourly."

So on my way to the station I dropped Joe off at a
delighted Mrs James' house, telling Joe that he was do
exactly as she said, and caught the train into London.
 I made my way to Notting  Hill, and went into the
studio where I'd been made to make the porn.

The photographer was at first surprised to see me, and
then I told him I needed some cash, and wanted to
perform!  He made all kinds of excuses about not
having any other blokes - or women, for that matter  -
lined up, and only having one camera man.  "Look,
Mike, couldn't I just do one of those solo wanking
things:  I've seen lots of them from here, where you
get a bloke in, ask him some questions about how old
he is, whether he's got a girl friend, and stuff like
that, and then he strips off and wanks.  I can do all
of that, and I really do need the cash....  I reckon
you owe Dan a favour - think of all the stuff he made
me do, and I reckon they sell well...."

He shrugged, and we were off!  It's pretty corny,
really. I'm sure you've all watched something like it.
 "Hi, how are you doing?  How old are you, Steve?  And
do you have a girlfriend?" (the answer's always yes,
even if the bloke only fucks other blokes!).  "And
does she know you're here?  And will you give her a
copy of the DVD?  OK, then, let's have your shirt
off.... Hold it a minute - show us those pecs....."
And so it goes on, until you lie back on a bed and
start to wank, with the snout of the camera almost
jammed into your crotch.  Half way through you have to
get up on your hands and knees and wank your cock as
it sticks down underneath you, so they can get a good
view of your balls swinging away, and a nice shot of
your arsehole.  And then it's lying on your back again
as you wank to climax, preferably leaving a huge
streak of cum all the way up your belly and chest.  It
may look easy, but actually it's quite difficult:
wanking when there's a camera watching you just isn't
as simple as it looks, as you tend to keep losing the
erection and there's nothing more ridiculous than
lying there trying to beat life in to a cock that's
flopping around.  And I have to confess that I
accepted his offer of a Viagra pill, even though we
then had to wait a bit for it to take effect.  Still,
as I hadn't wanked the previous night, the slick of
cum across my body was impressive, even though I say
so myself.

He gave me five hundred, which I reckon was a rip-off,
but beggars can't be choosers, can they? And at
Liverpool Street I bought Julie a big bunch of flowers
-  wasted, as it turned out, as when I collected Joe
he'd picked a big bunch for her, too, as he'd worked
away in that garden.    Mrs James was full of praise
for Joe, and told me he'd done a marvellous job,
pruning and lopping the overgrown shrubs, mowing the
lawn, and even digging over the vegetable plot.  She
couldn't believe how much work one slave could do in
an afternoon, and gave me two twenties in payment.

That night, over supper, I gave Dan the five hundred
and forty and explained to Julie that Mrs James had
been delighted to pay.  Dan wanted to know where the
five hundred had come from, of course, and I sort of
stammered and blushed and said "oh that bloke we met
in Notting Hill Gate", so I wouldn't have to tell
Julie I'd spent the afternoon wanking.

I didn't repeat the wanking that week, but news of Joe
spread, and Julie took a number of bookings for him to
go and work in various gardens, and I decided to join
in too, ostensibly to "supervise" Joe properly, but
mostly because I like to work:  my muscles need
exercise, otherwise I get cross, and start to feel all
flabby.  By Friday night we had more money from this
gardening stuff than Dan would have got from hiring me
out to the site - well, if you don't count the tax, of
course, as all our payments were in cash.

Joe didn't want to have Julie groom him after supper,
though.  I remembered how embarrassed I'd been to have
to kneel there on the kitchen table as Julie snipped
at my pubes and shaved my balls, and I knew it must be
worse for Joe - he'd taken a real liking to Julie and
they were always chatting away, and it's hard to have
a woman then playing around down there when you've
been so friendly, isn't it?  Still, it had to be done,
and when Joe at first refused, I had to be quite sharp
with him.  And when he still refused, I ordered him
outside and rammed him up against the wall - those few
years he had on me really told, as although he was fit
and strong, he was not really a match for me.

"Listen, you fucking slave - if you disobey me once
more I'll have you out here and paddle your bum!"

"Steve, please don't make me...."

"Shut the fuck up, slave!  And I've told you to call
me 'sir'!  This isn't optional - you're showing
tomorrow, and we'd lose points if you're not properly
groomed."

"But please, sir, don't make me have mistress Julie do
it.  Couldn't you or Master Dan trim me and shave me?"

"No!  It's mistress Julie's speciality.  She's a
trained hairdresser.  There's no problem - you're a
slave, remember?  And free men and women can do things
like that to slaves."

"Sir, please... I'm embarrassed...."

"Slaves don't get embarrassed, Joe!  Remember that!
Slaves do as their masters say.  And if when we go
back in I order you to kneel there and wank, for
example, that's what you'll do, with mistress Julie
watching you as you stroke that cock with those long
fingers of yours...."

"Sir, please, no...."

I relaxed my grip on him.  "Well listen then, and
listen well:  You'll go back in there, and you'll
apologise to mistress Julie.  Then you'll get up on
the table and kneel neatly near the edge, then you'll
put your hands on the back of your neck,  and you'll
hold them there as mistress Julie trims your pubes,
and your pits, and that treasure trail across your
belly.  And then, when I order you to, you'll put one
hand down and hold your cock up flat against your
belly  so your balls can be shaved.  And finally, when
I order it, I want to see you turn around and really
spread your buttocks wide apart, as wide as you can,
so you can be shaved down your ass crack, too.  And if
you falter, if you protest, if you make any kind of
scene to discomfort mistress Julie, you'll be wanking
instead, and stopping after every five strokes to ask
mistress Julie if she's happy with the way you're
doing it.  Is that clear?"

"Yes, sir."  Joe said in a quiet voice.

"Right!  In you go, then."

Well, Joe did as I'd ordered, and even Dan seemed a
bit surprised.  But out in our tent that night, when
we we'd zippered the two sleeping bags together, he
rolled over and grabbed my balls.  "Bastard...."

"Joe, you're hurting..."

"Like I was hurting earlier on, Steve?"

"No, those are my balls...."

"I think I'm going to fuck you, Steve...."

"No you're not."

"Yes I am - I reckon my cock up your arse will make
you feel just about as bad as you made me feel earlier
on.... You and Dan could have shaved and trimmed
me..."

"Let go of my balls, Joe, or else I'll punish you...."

"But not tonight, eh, Steve?  It's the Norwich Show
tomorrow. And you can't exhibit me with my back or bum
all flaming red from a punishment beating.....  No, I
reckon you're in for it tonight, Steve:  I've got you
by the balls, and there's not a thing you can do about
it if I fuck you now..."

I went to struggle, but Joe's fingers tightened around
my balls and I winced and then gasped with the sharp
pain.  Then I felt his cock, his big, hard, hot cock
nudging at my bum.  "Here it comes, Steve....", he
began, and to tell you the truth, it was somehow
exciting.

But then he stopped, before his head had actually
forced itself into me,  and let go of my balls.  "See,
Steve?  See how terrible it is to have something done
to you that you don't like?"

"I ought to take you out and beat the shit out of
you...."

"How about fucking me instead, Steve?  I didn't want
to fuck you as I want to 'show' well tomorrow and I
need all the cum on my sac.... But the judges like to
feel a well-used hole....."

I know it was being disloyal to Dan - I did love him,
after all.  But, I mean to say, a man is kind of
naturally promiscuous, isn't he?   And with a
fantastic muscled body like Joe rubbing against mine,
and the prospect of a lovely arsehole buried deep down
in a really superb bum, it was hard to resist.  And I
thought that, after all, Dan was fucking Julie and
that didn't make any difference to what we felt for
each other, so it would be OK for me to just do what
comes naturally and fuck Joe.

It was really good - snuggled close together in the
sleeping bag we were warm and comfy, and the scent of
our bodies was constantly pumped up to us as I fucked
away.  And it was exciting, somehow, to be doing it
out there in the tent in the garden, knowing we had to
be almost silent to stop the noise penetrating through
the bedroom window of Dan and Julie, and the
neighbours.  So as I penetrated him and began to work
away, I had to push Joe's face down into the sleeping
bag to stifle his little cries and moans of pain and
pleasure, and I couldn't do some of the things I like
doing, either:  for example, I thought that if  I
started to slap his bum, as I think that's a real
sexual charge for both blokes, someone might hear.

Well, you know how it is - when you're kind of
"constrained" like that, it makes it even more erotic
somehow, and as I worked away I could feel the
excitement building in both of us, to such an extent
that it was all over relatively quickly as my cum
pumped into Joe.  Then I pulled out of him, and turned
him around so we were facing, and kissed him.

We lay there, tasting each other's spit and feeling
the sweat running all over us. Then Joe whispered
"That's one good resolution gone, anyway."

"What do you mean?"

"You said there'd be trouble if Julie found dried cum
on the inside of this sleeping bag.... Well, there's
going to be a whole lot...."

"Jesus Christ!  The shit...."

Dan chuckled.  "Just as well I'm experienced, Steve!
I spent a lot of time  in the bathroom, you may have
noticed.... So there'll be no unpleasant brown
lines.... But your cum is leaking out of me, I can
feel it.  Jesus, mate, when did you last cum?  It
feels like a half pint you pushed up me...."

"What the fuck are you going on about, Joe?"

"The Captain was very fastidious, Steve ,and he hated
the thought of crap - and the smell.  So every night I
had to clean myself out before bed - you know, flush
my arse out thoroughly, several times, until it was
squeaky clean...."

"And you did this tonight?  So you thought I would
fuck you...?"
"Steve, of course I did.  I mean, two blokes who like
sex... Naked together in this sleeping bag... What did
you think was going to happen?"

"But you were going to fuck me!  You had my balls...."

Joe gave a slow, broad smile.  "Sometimes a bloke has
to be 'encouraged' to get started, Steve!  I though
you'd stick to wanking, if I didn't get you really
going.... You army blokes are all the same, in my
experience - wanking in the barracks is OK, but
fucking your mates is not.  Well, that's what the
Captain always said, anyway.  So I reckoned you'd
never get that lovely cock of yours up me if I didn't
get you started....  Not that wanking's not OK, but
it's not as good as this, is it?  I mean, we wouldn't
be lying here like this now if we'd just wanked, would
we?"

"Suppose I hadn't reacted, though...."

"...then I'd still have had sex, wouldn't I?  That
arse of yours felt good to my cock, Steve.  Why don't
you roll over, and let me show you...."

"Fuck off, Joe!  I don't take cock...."

"Not even mine?"

"Especially not yours, Joe!  I reckon it might split
me in half.  And anyway, you're a slave - slaves don't
fuck masters...."

Joe just laughed.  "And what about you and Dan, Steve?
 You were a slave, and he was your owner....  So you
must be used to taking cock...."

Without thinking, I blurted out "No way!  I always
fuck him...."

Joe laughed again.  "I thought so!  I've seen some of
the looks between you two.  And you say you 'always
fuck him'... So you're still doing it, even though
you're no longer a slave?  What does his wife say
about that?"

"Joe....", I was stammering now.  "Look, it's kind of
awkward...."

"You mean Julie doesn't know?"

I sort of squirmed a bit uneasily, and Joe dug me in
the ribs as if sharing a joke.  "You sly dog, Steve!
Fucking Dan, right under the nose of Julie.  Still, it
must be a bit of a risk - I mean, if she finds
out...."

"I don't fuck him.   Since I was free, that is.
Before that it was OK, I was a slave.  And everyone
knows owners and slaves...."

"Everyone including Julie, Steve?  You were fucking
him, and then he would go and fuck her?  What a nice
cosy little arrangement you have...."

I lay there silently, horrified at the power I'd ceded
to Joe.  If he now threatened to tell Julie, it would
destroy us all.  He dug me in the ribs again.  "Don't
worry, Steve!  Your little secret is safe with me.  Us
blokes have to stick together, don't we?   I don't
want to cause trouble for you and Dan - and more
importantly, I don't want to upset Julie:  I like her,
as she's really nice to me.  She treats me like a man,
and not like a slave..."  He stopped for a moment,
smiling, and went on "...except of course that she
trims my pubes..."

"Joe, if you ever breathe a word of this...."

"I won't Steve.  You can trust me.  But the next time
you're playing with Dan, how about letting me join
in?"

"No, Joe."

"Why not?  You're not shy, are you?  Worried about
having another bloke watching you?"

"No, of course not.  I've done porn stuff, with
threesomes, and foursomes, even."

"So what's the problem?  I reckon Dan might like a bit
of variety...."

"Joe, it's not like that...."

"Not like what, Steve?  Like two blokes fucking?"

"No... Dan and me.... Well, it's more than that....
It's kind of special....."

I went silent, and Joe did too, then his bantering
tone became sort of serious.  "I reckon you're a lucky
bloke, Steve.  You and Dan.... It's not just fucking,
is  it?  I reckon you're more than just mates... You
love him, don't you?   I've noticed the way you look
at him, and now I think about it, I can see that
you're always watching him..."

"Joe, I...."

"It's OK, Steve.  It's OK to say you love another
bloke, you know.  It doesn't have to be just about
sex.  And I suppose that's why you don't tell Julie.
I mean, a lot of wives understand when their husbands
go off and have a good time with another bloke - some
of them even think it's a good thing, as they're 'left
alone', not forced to have sex with their husband. But
having sex is one thing, and actually loving another
bloke is quite another, if you ask me. I reckon Julie
could get over you fucking Dan if it was just that,
but she'd never, never forgive Dan for loving someone
else."

Joe paused, then drew himself up on one elbow so he
was looking down at me.  He seemed to be so serious
now.  "I take it Dan does love you?"

"Yes, of course he does."
"How do you know, Steve?  If you've never told him you
love him, perhaps he thinks he's just a bit of casual
sex for you,  and perhaps that's all he wants, anyway.
 He has got Julie, after all..."

"No, Joe.  I know he feels the same about me as I do
about him.  I just know it."

Joe sort of shrugged.  "Well that's OK then!  And what
about me?"

"Oh Joe, get real!  With you it is just sex.  You're a
lot of fun, but I don't love you."

I caught a look of something in Joe's eye, something
infinitely sad. Then, as if he consciously made it
happen, he smiled slightly. "Well that's OK then.  As
long as it's fun...."

He dropped down to lie beside me, then, as if he
wanted to take care of me, he rolled me over slightly,
spooned up to me and put his arm around me.  "Take
care, Steve", he whispered in my ear.  "Take care,
mate.  You're playing a dangerous game.  And you could
get hurt, badly hurt.  You and Dan both."

After that little heartfelt talk I did try to
consciously control my feelings for Dan.  I began to
notice what Joe had - that my eyes did follow him
around the room.  And I occasionally touched him -
brushed past him close in the hall, let my fingers
linger on his hand as I gave him the phone, that sort
of stuff:  my body wanted him so desperately, and I
suppose all this was out of my control really.  But it
had to stop, as if Joe had noticed, others might have,
too.  But this lack of "casual" contact only made me
more and more feverish for those rare times when we
could really be close together - when Julie went to
her mother's, for example, leaving us alone.  Or on
those rare occasions when we managed to get a night
away at a Show.

We weren't doing badly at Shows, actually:  I'd
managed to work up a little circle of "regular" users
of our gardening services, and even took on some minor
building work like re-concreting drives and stuff.   I
worked alongside Joe, both to get more work done and
hence make more money, but also because I didn't want
my own fitness to slide.  And when we'd finished, I
always made Joe run, too, as that's good for the heart
and lungs.  I only wished I could have taken him
swimming as that's fantastic exercise for almost all
the muscles, but of course he wasn't allowed in the
public swimming baths, being a slave.  All in all,
with the money we made from the contracting work and
the occasional prizes that Joe won we weren't doing
too badly, although I did feel so sorry for Dan who
still had the dreadfully long days because of the
commuting.

I also continued to enjoy the Sunday morning football,
and even though she didn't see him all that much,
Julie insisted Dan still came along, saying that a man
needed something like that away from the house and
kids.  We usually took Joe, too, if he wasn't working,
and he sometimes got a game, just as I had.     About
a month later, though, I was standing there changing
after the match and as I bent down to undo my boots I
gave a little gasp of pain as my back ached so much.
One of my team mates heard this, and at once asked
"You OK, Steve?"

"It's my fucking back - I was helping my slave pull a
bit shrub out of one of the gardens we do and I reckon
I strained it."
"You're working?  And alongside your slave?"

He sounded a bit surprised by this, and I thought at
first it was because I was working with Joe.  So as we
walked towards the showers I told him "I like working
alongside Joe, actually - you know, my slave who
sometimes plays for us when one of the lads doesn't
turn up?  It keeps me fit....  And we need the money,
of course!"

"What?  Are you a fucking gambler or something?  Or
have you got an expensive mistress stashed away
somewhere?  I didn't see you arriving in your Ferrari,
either - you came in that crappy old thing of
Dan's....  You surely haven't spent all the
compensation already."

I wanted to ask him about it there and then, but you
know how it is when there are a lot of you all in the
showers together - we were all laughing and talking
about the match, and one of the blokes had some big
scratch marks down his back so we all wanted to know
what he'd been doing with his girlfriend to make her
so passionate...  But afterwards, as I stood next to
Bob, the bloke I'd been talking to, as we both
towelled off and pulled on our clothes, I asked him
"What compensation are you going on about?"

"You were unjustly Indentured.  You were a slave, in
fact.  They must have paid out a lot...."

"No....  Nothing."

Bob looked at me.  "Steve, come and see me at the
office tomorrow!  I reckon you've been swindled, mate:
 if you had been falsely convicted of a crime and
imprisoned, the Courts set compensation and the
Government has to pay.  So if you were falsely
enslaved...."

Well, it turned out that unlike the rest of the team
who were plumbers and electricians and carpet fitters
and tradesmen like that, Bob was a solicitor:  it was
a bit unusual to have a professional in our team, but
he said he liked to keep fit and always enjoyed
football, so there he was - I hadn't known before as
he never made a big thing of it and always acted just
like one of the other lads.

He gave me his card and I phoned him up on Monday, and
the receptionist seemed surprised that I wanted to see
him, but it appeared that he had a lot of time, so I
fixed to go and see him that afternoon, leaving Joe to
work away by himself.  It was a large firm of
solicitors down in Chelmsford, mainly specialising in
corporate work, and when  I got there I saw why my
call had been unusual:  Bob wasn't one of the partners
or anything, but a very junior employee, who normally
did almost nothing but the work in buying and selling
houses.  He looked quite different in a suit, and as
we sat in one of the interview rooms (I guessed he
didn't warrant an office of his own), I joked that he
looked quite different with clothes on.

"I'm sorry, Steve", he began.  "I may have given you
false hopes.  There's no precedent for the Government
paying compensation for false enslavement, as once a
man is enslaved, that's usually it - he stays a slave!
 As far as I can tell, you and your fellow soldiers
are the first men ever to have been freed like that."

"Well I wasn't expecting anything - but now you've
mentioned it, it does seem unfair...  Can't we sue
them or something?"

"As a general principle of English Law, no.  You were
convicted of a criminal act, in the name of the Crown,
and you can't sue the Crown as the Courts nominally
operate in the name of the Crown!"

"But you said that wrongly convicted criminals did get
compensation..."

"Yes, because Parliament passed a law saying that they
should be able to claim for damages.  But they never
did that for Indentures, so you can't bring a case
against the Crown in the Crown's own courts..."

"That seems fucking unfair!"

"Well, Steve, it's the law.  It can seem unfair
sometimes.  But you'd know that, from when they
convicted you in the first place."

Look, I won't bore you with the full details of what
then went on -  Bob was a real junior but wanted to do
something to "get known" in the firm.  So Bob agreed
to at least "make representations" to the Government,
and said that he'd do it "as a favour" and sort of
"pro bono" as of course I had no money to spare.  And
it dragged on and on - it was as if the government was
determined not to admit it might have been wrong, even
though cases like ours were very, very rare indeed and
the amount of money involved would have been trifling.

In the end, though, we won!  But not in the Courts:
at the Harrogate show the next year Dan and I ran into
Jason Carter again, the journalist whose paper had
started the "Free Steve!" Campaign, and we all
remembered the fun we'd had in that hotel room the
year before, and how exciting it had been in the "Free
Steve!" Campaign.

"So I'll never get to fuck you, Steve...", Jason said,
still smiling after we'd all embraced.

"Well you turned me down when Dan offered me to you
last year..."

"Which was before I found out what fun sex with men
was - that little session was a real eye-opener, I can
tell you."

"So why don't you join Dan and me tonight?  We've got
our display slave with us, but we can leave him in the
cages here...."

"You and Dan still 'play'?  I thought that now you're
free..."

"As you said, Jason, sex with men is fun.  Dan and I
are kind of used to each other, and we decided not to
stop...."

Some time that night, when we were all lying there
sprawled over each other, Jason asked Dan and me how
things were going.  Dan started to tell him, but I cut
in "Jason, this isn't for publication, right?  You
know... Dan's married.... You can say how we're still
showing slaves, but one of the rest."

We went on to tell him about the compensation thing,
of course, and in the morning he called his paper but
they weren't interested in doing another "Free Steve!"
kind of campaign, as now they were banging on about
the UK leaving the EC and becoming another state of
the USA as "we had more in common with our former
colonists than we did with those cheese-eating
surrender monkeys in Europe...."

Jason was disappointed as he'd have liked to help us,
but I reckoned he could still do something.  So the
next time Bob and Dan and I went to a meeting with the
Government, Jason came along too and explained that he
was the reporter who'd started the "Free Steve!"
campaign, and that he was here to "update the British
public."   Within a month I was in possession of a
cheque for my "lost" three years of pay in the army,
plus as much again for "loss of future earnings", and
another three years as "an ex gratia payment for the
indignity I might have suffered".  Bob wanted to fight
on for more, now they'd agreed to the principle that
they should pay, but Jason was nervous that the
Government might speak to his Editor and realise that
the paper wasn't at all interested.  In the end,
therefore, I settled for nine years pay, but Bob
persuaded them it should be tax free, so it was worth
a lot more.

End Of Part Fifteen