Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2012 00:17:22 -0700 (PDT)
From: Christian Debus <servus4u@ymail.com>
Subject: Re: "Changed Circumstances"  Chapter 53  Gay Male /Authoritarian

CHANGED CIRCUMSTANCES
CHAPTER 53
Francois Meets with Miles

This is a story of erotic fiction meant for adult readers over the age of
eighteen years

Written by Jean-Christophe (Chris): June, 2012
Read all my stories at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Jean-Christophe_Stories

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Chapter 53
Francois Fournier:

Visions of my former boyhood friend, Lucien Barrois toiling as the naked
slave Rafe haunt me. They fill my waking hours and disturb my sleep. It all
seems so unfair!

Lucien and I had been friends at school and we'd rowed together in the
school team. And we'd spent time in each other's company during our school
vacations. He was a frequent visitor to my home and I fondly remember the
happy days I'd spent with him at La Forõ€'˜.

Lucien's grandparents had always made me feel most welcome at La
Forõ€'˜ and I remember them as 'old world' aristocracy whose very
world was centred on their orphaned grandson, Lucien. It would be fair to
say that Lucien stood at the centre of their universe. He was their 'raison
d'etre'.

And I knew them to being scrupulously upright and honest in all their
dealings with others. No breath of scandal ever sullied their illustrious
name. That is until their beloved grandson, Lucien was adjudged to be slave
born and cast into bitter servitude at the instigation of Charlotte
Maratier (formerly Barrois).  How glad I am that they weren't alive to
witness this unhappy event. It would have shattered them and broken their
hearts.

To my shame, when I'd heard about Lucien's changed circumstances, I'd not
given it the attention I should have done. I recall the news did distress
me but at the time I was heavily involved in my family's business affairs
and so Lucien just drifted out of my consciousness.

It wasn't that Lucien and I were as close as we'd once been. During our
adolescent and late teen- aged years we'd just drifted apart. There weren't
any arguments or disagreements between us; rather it was a divergence of
interests that saw us go our separate ways. I knew that Lucien had remained
close friends with three of our former schoolmates, Miles Fortescue, Jack
Stanford and Daniel Carew.

The four had been inseparable and although I was friends with all four, I'd
never been a member of their close, inner circle.

And there was another factor at play in my friendship with
Lucien. Guiltily, I'd always been sexually attracted to him. Often, I
recall our rowing sessions and the lustful thoughts I'd harboured towards
him. He never knew the affect he had upon me. Even now, as I think about
him, I can see his sweat soaked singlet and shorts clinging closely to the
contours of his youthful body and smell the heady aroma of his perspiration
which acted as an aphrodisiac on my senses.

Oh, how I'd salivated over the sight of his heaving chest after a strenuous
rowing session and watched guiltily as he stripped naked in the changing
rooms. Always, I connived to share the same shower with him so that I could
surreptitiously spy upon his nakedness.  And always I had to fight the
temptation to reach out and touch him.

Even as a burgeoning teenager, Lucien was a delight to the eye; his
adolescent body gave ample promise of the man he would eventually
become. His broad-shoulders and manly chest appealed to me but not as much
as the delicious curves of his ass or his well-endowed cock and the heavy,
pendulous balls which swung freely between his muscular thighs.

We were both on the verge of sexual maturity and inevitably our showering
together degenerated into boisterous horseplay as we wrestled one another
in the steamy environment of the shower- room. As our soap-slicked bodies
slip-slithered against each other under the cascading water, my sexual
fantasies about Lucien intensified. Inevitably our bodily friction would
see us both massively aroused and, covered in the red flush of our mutual
embarrassment, we'd pull apart and continue to shower in silence.

Lucien never gave an indication of his sexual proclivities and I never knew
if he ever lusted after me.  I was fearful of losing his friendship or even
worse - of earning his contempt for my blossoming homosexuality - and so I
concealed my true feelings from him.

But many times over the intervening years I have wondered about Lucien's
sexual orientation and wondered wistfully - what if?

My love for Lucien was unrequited and remains with me to this day!

Occasionally we did meet - at some social function - and my heart would
skip a beat as we warmly embraced. The feel of his hard body pressed
against my own was exquisite torture. At those times my suppressed feelings
for him would resurface but remained carefully hidden from him.

And Lucien's adolescent promise was more than fulfilled. I know it isn't
usual to describe a man as beautiful but to have said Lucien was handsome
would be to do him an injustice. Lucien was in every sense a very
beautiful, young man.

He retained something of his boyish charm and innocence and I thought these
were his most endearing qualities. Lucien was an 'open book' and he was
without guile. I loved the way his mid- blond, longish hair flopped down
over his forehead and complemented the brilliant blue of his eyes and his
lustrous, ruby-red lips. How I ached to feel those lips pressing against my
own hungry ones.

And it had wounded me the first time I saw Lucien as the slave Rafe. I was
heartsick at the sight of him yoked naked and filthy to another slave and
made to pull a heavy dray of gravel from my quarry to the gardens at La
Forõ€'˜. It was as though an arrow had pierced me.

I have never met Guy Maratier - indeed I have no wish to - and I see him as
the usurper of Lucien's birth right.  But I know it would be unfair of me
to blame him entirely for what befell Lucien. I know the claim of Lucien's
slave origins wasn't his doing. It was the machinations of his grandmother,
Charlotte Maratier that had seen my former friend enslaved. If what I have
heard is true, then it is doubtful if Guy Maratier would have had the
initiative to instigate the case against Lucien.

I'm ashamed to admit that I'd not paid any more than passing attention to
the tumultuous events taking place within the former Barrois
Empire. Through the local grapevine, I'd heard that Guy Maratier and his
son Etienne regularly visited La Forõ€'˜ but I'd never seen them
so they were strangers to me.

Therefore it came as a surprise when Claymore Jackson, La
Forõ€'˜'s very capable chief overseer had contacted me personally
and asked if I could supply several loads of gravel for the use within the
plantation's gardens.

Claymore is well-known to me from the days when I'd visited La
Forõ€'˜. As a boy, together with Lucien, I'd spent much time in
his company. He'd always shown great affection towards Lucien - the boy -
and some of that had extended to me. Consequently, I am fond of Claymore
and hold him in high respect. And naturally, I'd agreed to sell him the
gravel and to personally oversee its delivery.

I was present when the La Forõ€'˜ dray made its first trip to the
quarry and I had watched as the team of heavy duty draft slaves rested as
my slaves loaded it up for its return journey.

I'd not taken any notice of the naked drafts; all slaves appear the same to
the casual observer. I suppose there is anonymity for a slave in his nudity
and besides one doesn't normally show an interest in a slave - especially
if he is a draft animal.

I'd been approached by a young overseer who'd been placed in charge of the
team of drafts and its dray. I was surprised by his youth; I estimated he
couldn't have been older than seventeen and I was correct. He introduced
himself to me as Conn and explained that he was an apprentice overseer at
La Forõ€'˜. He told me he'd been given the position by Lucien
Barrois shortly before his enslavement.

The irony of this situation wasn't lost on me. Sadly, it occurred to me
that Lucien was now subject to this young teenager's authority and his
whip.

Conn impressed me with his maturity and so I asked about Rafe. I was sure
that Conn would know what had befallen my former friend. He told me that
Rafe now works at La Forõ€'˜ and had done so for the past few
months. Guiltily, I chided myself that Rafe was working close by and in my
indifference I'd not taken the time to enquire after him. I asked for more
detail and was distressed to hear that Rafe had worked as a beast of burden
on a water pump supplying water to the plantation's gardens.

Conn went on to tell me that Rafe was currently undergoing training to
prepare him for his role as one of Guy Maratier's two ponies. The thought
of this did upset me. I had visions of Rafe running naked under the whip
through the streets of the city where he'd once been respected as a member
of the Barrois family.

But I was even more distressed when Conn laughingly told me that, as part
of his ongoing pony training, Rafe was one of the naked, yoked slaves
harnessed to his dray.

Shocked by this, I glanced over at the miserable wretches as they recovered
from the exertion of pulling the empty dray from La Forõ€'˜ to the
quarries. Obviously, they were distressed and they showed it. Slumped over
their pushing-bars with their shoulders weighed down by the heavy wooden
yokes, their sweat-streaked bodies heaved as their oxygen starved lungs
replenished themselves.

I tried to identify Rafe from among their number; but this proved
impossible. With their naked bodies coated in sweat-streaked dust and with
their close cropped heads and bearded faces, each slave was
indistinguishable from his team mate.

Shaken by the revelation that Lucien was among their number and accompanied
by their overseer, Conn, I approached the team of heavy duty draft slaves.

Perhaps it was the knowledge that one I'd known since boyhood was now a
slave among them but that morning, for the first time, I understood man's
inhumanity to his fellow man. With sickening reality, I saw a free man's
indifference to the plight and suffering of his enslaved brethren.  The
realisation of this was as punch to the stomach.

As we approached, one or two slaves nervously looked up at us but quickly
averted their eyes; their fear of causing offence to their 'betters' was
all too obvious.

The sun-darkened, sweat streaked bodies reeked! The malodorous state of the
slaves was an affront to every concept of human dignity. But I realised
that I, in common with all other slave-owners, had deliberately robbed our
slaves of every skerrick of their humanity. To salve our consciences and to
fatten our purses, we'd relegated them to the status of animals
indistinguishable from any other of our domestic livestock. Indeed we'd
gone further and reduced them to the lowest level; we prized our dogs and
horses more highly than we valued our slaves.

It is our cruel indifference to the plight of the individual slave that
makes possible our subjugation and exploitation of the enslaved masses. And
in doing this, we, the free slave-owners, have negated our own
humanity. Conveniently, our greed blinkers us and hides our culpability
from our collective and individual consciousness.

I'd not seen this before and it was as though the scales had been removed
from my eyes. Indeed, I'd never considered the plight of my family's slaves
before. It had taken the realisation that my friend, Lucien Barrois had
been reduced to base slavery to awaken my compassion.

Horrified, I looked at the ranks of naked, abused bodies bent under the
weight of their impossibly heavy, wooden yokes. I saw the striped backs and
asses of these miserable wretches. I watched as they were tormented by
swarms of flies and other insects attracted to them by their stench and
filth encrusted bodies. I watched their vain attempts to be free of these
pests by the shaking of their bodies and the stamping of their feet.

I looked on as their sweat dripped from their stressed bodies onto the
quarry floor darkening the soil beneath them. I imagined their parched
throats, their dry mouths and tongues swollen by thirst. I was overwhelmed
by their suffering. This was a new sensation for me and was only made
possible by my understanding that my friend Lucien Barrois suffered with
them as the slave Rafe.

I was moved by compassion to ask Conn if I could have my slaves water his
team. He seemed reluctant at first; it was almost as though he disapproved
of my concern for the slaves under his control. Perhaps, he saw my request
as impertinent; after all it's an unwritten law that a man never interferes
with another man's treatment of his slaves. And possibly, he saw my request
as an oblique criticism of his handling of the team. At first, I thought he
was about to refuse but for whatever reason he finally agreed.

I called for my water-bearers to fetch water and I watched the pitiful
scenes as La Forõ€'˜'s slaves greedily gulped down the cooling
balm to replace the moisture they lost through their copious sweating. Left
to their own devices the slaves would have swallowed pints of the precious
fluid. But Conn, perhaps to prove to me that he was still in control,
limited their intake to just a few mouthfuls each. In doing so he told me.

"I don't want their bellies overloaded for the return trip back to La
Forõ€'˜. Too much water sloshing around inside of them only makes
them sluggish."

I was dismayed at the apprentice overseer's callous indifference to his
charges. Barely seventeen, he already had all the hallmarks of a stern
taskmaster. I would hate to be a slave under his jurisdiction.

I watched as my water bearers moved from one yoked pair to another hoping
to recognise Rafe.

Then I saw him!

Or to be more accurate, it was the young overseer who drew my attention to
Rafe.

"Hey, Dumb ass! I have a former friend of yours asking after you."

I sensed Rafe's embarrassment at my presence as he stood mute with his eyes
downcast.

"I spoke to you Dumb ass! I said you have a former friend asking after
you. Lift your head so he can see you.  LOOK UP BOY!"

To gain Rafe's attention, Conn used the handle of his whip to humiliatingly
slap the slave's ass. As the loud 'thwack' echoed around the quarry, Rafe
quickly raised his head.  Shamed, by my presence, his pain-filled eyes
looked briefly into mine before he respectfully lowered them once more to
the ground.

My embarrassment surely matched Rafe's own. In my confusion, I blurted out.

"Of course, I knew him as Lucien. Conn, what name did you say his Master
has given him?"

"He's now called Rafe! I believed his Master called him after a mongrel dog
he owned as a boy. But I call him Dumb ass. I think that name suits him
better."

The bile caught in my throat and tasted bitter in my mouth as I thought
about this ultimate insult to the once proud, aristocratic Lucien
Barrois. In naming him after a mongrel dog, the Maratier's had added a few
more ounces to the pound of flesh they'd extracted from the carcass of the
noble Barrois family.

My water-carriers moved forward and held the water bag aloft for Rafe's
fellow slave to drink.

As his yoke-mate greedily swallowed the cooling balm, Rafe impatiently
waited for his turn.  Imploringly, he reached out his arms and through his
parched lips begged.

"Water! Please Sir, give me water!"

For his temerity in speaking out, Conn snapped his whip across Rafe's ass.

"Shut up, Dumb ass! Or you'll not be allowed to drink."

My heart broke to see my one time friend, Lucien reduced to such dire
straits. My blood boiled with anger at the injustice done to Rafe and I
seethed with indignation at the cruel treatment of him by his supremely
confident, teenaged overseer.

Rafe ignored my presence - perhaps it was his acceptance of himself as a
slave and his suffering which prevented him from doing so but there was no
further recognition of me on his part.

Undoubtedly, Rafe knew that he could no longer speak out of turn to a free
man and had chosen to remain silent. I wondered if he felt shame and I
supposed that he must. I placed myself in Rafe's position and tried to
imagine his feelings. But that was beyond my meagre imagination.

It was impossible for me to put myself in Rafe's place. How could I even
begin to know how it felt to be stripped naked, collared, branded, cruelly
abused and worked to the limits of my physical strength? As I looked at the
naked, grime-encrusted body of my former friend, I felt a little of his
shame. As I looked at his cropped head and stubbled countenance, I saw his
pain mirrored in his eyes which had lost their cornflower blue lustre and
were now dulled with his humiliation and suffering.

And yet beneath his filth and degradation, I thought I saw something of the
old Lucien.  Was it my imagination or did I see vestiges of his proud
Barrois heritage? And I thought I recognised in Rafe the noble bearing of
his illustrious ancestors.

Out of my respect for his feelings, I chose not to speak to Rafe and to
ignore his presence in the team.  In doing that I was troubled; would Rafe
see this as a repudiation of our friendship and a betrayal of the closeness
which we'd once shared.

I wasn't to know that Rafe had already suffered such betrayal at the hands
of his three closest, boyhood friends, Miles Fortescue, Jack Stanford and
Daniel Carew.  I wasn't aware of his encounter with them at the
slave-market where his new Master had taken him to be appraised and valued
by the odious Lionel Schuster.

Their rejection and treatment of him had wounded him deeply and if he could
talk to me, he'd tell me the hurt of their rebuffs still lingered.

And in choosing not to speak to Rafe, I added yet another arrow wound to
those of Miles, Jack and Daniel which had pierced his heart.

And shame stopped me from speaking to Rafe!

But the greater shame wasn't Rafe's - it was mine. I'd done nothing to
support him in his moments of blackest despair. I'd ignored his plight and
left him to suffer alone; I knew nothing of Norge or of his love and
support of Rafe. I would learn of Norge's noble character later from Rafe
himself. My conscience troubled me at the thoughtless indifference I'd
shown to one I'd once considered my friend.

As the team was watered, my slaves had quickly loaded the dray and Conn
wasted no time in whipping his charges into action for the return to La
Forõ€'˜. I watched as the slaves strained into their yokes and
harness and struggled up the steep incline leading from the quarry floor to
the roadway. I heard the loud, abusive shouting of Conn and his assistant
and the staccato cracking of their whips urging the slaves into even more
superhuman - almost unsustainable - effort.

This left me visibly shaken and I retired to my office where I spent the
remainder of the day contemplating Rafe's unhappy fate. Many times, I was
moved to tears as I thought of him struggling in the team. I was aware that
the team and its dray returned for more gravel throughout the day but I
couldn't face seeing Rafe again and so I kept my distance from him.

But that doesn't mean I didn't think about Rafe. I did and he was uppermost
in my thoughts from then on. My encounter with Rafe that morning proved to
be a catalyst. The more I thought of Rafe, the more obsessed I became with
his fate. My sense of my own guilt at initially ignoring his fate gnawed at
me until I could no longer ignore it.

Memories of my childhood spent with Lucien at La Forõ€'˜ were
never far from my mind. My days were filled with reminisces of happier days
spent with him and my nights were haunted by the dreadful fate that had
befallen him.

As I dwelt on Rafe and his fate, the more I became determined to do
something about it. But what could I do? There seemed to be few options
open to me. Rafe was a court-sentenced slave and I couldn't change that.

Initially, my thoughts centred on buying Rafe and setting him free. But
what would happen to him then? He'd lost all his possessions and as a free
man he'd be homeless and penniless.  Of course, I could always employ
Lucien to work for my family. This would give him an income and perhaps
restore his sense of self-worth. But that was for the future.

Before then, I had to somehow set Rafe free!

At first, I saw this as my only option and I became excited - to the point
of obsession - with buying Rafe from Guy Maratier and then manumitting
him. But practicality asserted itself over my initial enthusiasm and I
began to see the problems associated with this as my solution.

My common-sense told me there were two issues that I'd have to address in
my efforts to free Rafe.  The first - and the most pressing one - was the
Maratier need for revenge against the Barrois family.  I didn't know Guy
Maratier personally but it was common knowledge that the prime motivator
behind this need for revenge was his grandmother, Charlotte Maratier. And
if the rumours were true, then it was extremely doubtful that she'd agree
to anything that remotely suggested freedom for the hated Lucien
Barrois. So that seemed an insurmountable problem.

And the second issue - while not as great - was nevertheless one I had to
address. And that was Rafe's value as a slave. The circumstances behind
Rafe becoming a slave had given him a certain notoriety that had added
immensely to his value. In all probability, he is the most expensive slave
in the city and there are many who'd pay a fortune for the privilege of
owning him. His true monetary worth is immeasurable and sadly I realised it
would be beyond my limited resources.

I doubt very much that my father or brothers would support me in my efforts
to free Rafe.  Like all others, they'd shown great interest in Lucien's
fall from grace but once the initial outrage had waned they'd thought no
more of him. To them he was just another slave.

So what was I to do?

Then, I remembered Lucien's three schoolboy friends, Miles, Jack and
Daniel. If I could enlist their support then perhaps - just perhaps - we
could help Rafe. Possibly, the joint pooling of our money and resources
could achieve more than my 'go it alone' efforts.

But how did I make this approach to Lucien's former friends. Whilst I knew
them, we were never close and apart from the occasional encounters at
school reunions, I'd had little to do with them since our schooldays.

I recalled that of the three, Miles was the most level-headed and astute. I
knew he'd also been a close friend of Lucien's and that he was the natural
leader of the three. I remembered that Jack was also a practical person but
Daniel was more of a scatterbrain and easily persuaded.

So it seemed prudent for me to make my initial approach to Miles. I
contacted him and we met at a quiet tavern for a meal and drinks where I
told him of my encounter with Rafe and of my feelings of distress at his
plight.

He, in turn, told me of his similar feelings and I felt a new bond grow
between us. This bond was made strong by our mutual affection for our
former friend, Lucien Barrois.

Then Miles told me of his first encounter with Rafe the slave at Lionel
Schuster's slave-market where he, Jack and Daniel had been witnesses to
Rafe's appraisal and valuation. He told me at first he'd treated Rafe badly
and how he and his two friends had ridiculed and jeered at him. He told me
he is now constantly plagued with visions of that occasion and how the
haunted, fearful look in Rafe's eyes is a perpetual reminder of his
unthinking callousness.

Miles went on to tell me how, during Lionel Schuster's mandatory testing
for the new slave's physical strength and endurance, he'd been distressed
by Rafe's suffering and how he had taken it upon himself to give the slave
water to drink which had greatly upset the slave-dealer. He told me of the
tawdry game of chance they'd played - guessing the length of Rafe's tongue
- in which the prize was Rafe's mouth and how all three had been invited by
Guy Maratier to his home where Rafe had been made to kneel before them and
service their cocks with his mouth.

Tearfully, Miles told me he was stricken with guilt by all this. And I
believed him; as he shed tears for his crass betrayal of his best friend, I
could see his true remorse. In some ways Miles' feelings perfectly matched
my own.  We both needed to make amends to Lucien but even more we needed to
beg for Rafe's forgiveness.

Our talk was cathartic. In baring our souls to one another and in
confessing our common feelings of guilt we found solace in one another's
company.  The tears we shed together for Rafe helped us to bond and these
in turn strengthened our determination and resolve to help our friend
Lucien Barrois.

In talking to Miles, I found a friend and an ally in my efforts to help
Rafe. As we locked in a farewell embrace, Miles told me he would talk to
both Jack and Daniel and that all four of us would meet soon to devise
strategies to rescue Rafe.


To be continued.........


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