Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 14:05:52 -0800 (PST)
From: Pete Brown <petebrownuk@yahoo.com>
Subject: Four The Same, Part 14

FOUR THE SAME    by Pete Brown    petebrownuk @ yahoo.com

Read all of Pete's stories at
groups.yahoo.com/group/petebrownseroticstories

Part Fourteen


My life was now so hectic, and I began to find that
the curtailment of my freedom that I had already
experienced was affecting me in other ways, too.  I
had devised a plan - a very bold plan, considering the
risks - to deal with the four slaves and have them as
my own.  I knew that even if Andrew succeeded in
making the sheikh give them to the bank, he would
still be unhappy about the prospect of his cousin
finding them and exposing his innocent ruse to win the
bet.  I suppose Andrew could handle it, but it didn't
seem sensible to rock the boat too much, and we ought
really to rely on Andrew's control for important
business matters.

I therefore planned to remove the four slaves to my
country estate in England.  This would safely get them
away from the sheikh's cousin, and make the sheikh
himself happy.  Of course the personal risk to me
would be immense - one just isn't allowed to own
slaves in England, and were they to escape, or even
whisper their story to one of the dreadful scandal
sheets that call themselves newspapers, my reputation
would be destroyed.

Technology would aid me, I thought, and I planned to
have the mechanism that controlled the dogs modified
to deal with the slaves.  Instead of a mild electric
shock when the dogs approached the buried cable around
my estate, I wanted something more permanent:  a small
explosive charge, I thought, to blow off the head of a
slave attempting to escape.  Of course there would
then be the problem of disposing of the body - we're
very strict about that sort of thing in England, but
surely the knowledge that they would be killed would
actually stop the slaves from attempting it?

Normally I could just have called up the company who
made the special dog collars and discussed with them
the modifications I needed, but this was now
impossible.  I had to resort to subterfuge, and in the
guise of personally inspecting the new business
management systems that our IT department was
implementing at vast expense, I arranged for a
demonstration on how our new systems could be used to
provide business information.

The low level employees somewhere on the eighteenth
floor of our tower were surprised when I, the IT
Director, several of my aides, and several of his,
turned up unexpectedly for a demonstration of the
system.  I had to pretend to be interested as screens
flashed, printers whirred, "useful features" were
demonstrated to me, some wretch showed how she used
the "help" facilities, and so on.

"Quite so", I finally said.  "Now you've given me the
demonstration, let's see real life.  What do we know
about a specific company?"  I named the supplier of
the dog control system, and to my joy found that they
were customers of ours at several branches in England,
and in Germany. I asked to be showed the status of
their accounts, and deduced that they were trading
profitably, but had few reserves.  Then I commented
that for so many small businesses it was the quality
of the directors that was paramount, and asked to be
shown details of their accounts.

At first, someone was going to deny me this, quoting
the data protection regulations, but as I raised my
eyebrow in comment, the IT director at once overrode
this and said that as the Chairman, I had a right to
all the data that the bank held.  Consequently I soon
saw the meagre state of their Managing Director's
personal finances, and gleaned his home address and
telephone number.

That evening I telephoned the Managing Director, and
explained that face to face meetings were just
impossible.  Without explicitly saying who I was, I
promised him a very substantial money transfer into
his personal account when four of the collars, to my
specification, were delivered to me.  He went to give
me his account details for the transfer, but I used
the fact that I already knew them to show him that I
knew more about him than he thought, and hinted of the
consequences that would befall him personally, and his
company, if there was any leak of this conversation,
or of the devices to be manufactured.

I waited with frustration for the collars to be
delivered - the fools took the best part of two months
- and then told Andrew that I would again be visiting,
and that he should use his "influence"  with the
sheikh to ensure that the slaves were available for
me.  I spoke to the captain of my jet and warned him
that on the flight home we would need to bring back a
large crate, as I was being honoured with a gift from
the sheikh, and he said that he would make
arrangements fore it to be swiftly delivered to my
estate.  He  questioned me about the weigh of the
crate, and I mentioned that it would be heavy, and he
cautioned me against taking some of my many aides with
me on the trip as there was only a limited weight that
could take off in the desert heat - a restriction that
suited me perfectly, as I did not want my people
continuing to discuss business with me on the return
journey when my mind would be on other, more
interesting, matters.

THE SLAVE'S STORY

I just can't tell you what it felt like as the tiny
cage slid up the shaft.  When we went down, I had kind
of written off the rest of my life, I'd accepted,
perhaps, that I was entombed down there for ever.  And
now, as it slid upwards through the narrow hole
through the hundreds of metres of rock, I felt a new
hope beginning to stir.  I clung on to Marc, and tried
to tell him that his nightmare would soon be over,
that we would soon once more be in the open air, but
he was, as I had become accustomed to, still totally
unresponsive.

The guards pushed us into a cell at the top of the
shaft, and it was only when Matt and Ray emerged some
minutes later that I saw what those months down in the
mine had done to us.  We were, of course, filthy - we
had not washed in all that time.  We had lost that
physical perfection of toned and honed bodies that we
had had, because of our lack of sufficient food, and
our ribs and so on were now all plainly visible on our
emaciated bodies.  And, of course, our hair had grown!
 We all had thick tufts of it at our pubes, on our
chests, and sported big, shaggy full beards and long
unkempt hair.

The guards treated us with disdain, or, perhaps, it
was the stench of our unwashed bodies and our vile
appearance that affected them.  Keeping their
distance, we were taken from the cell and put into a
big travelling cage on the back of a pickup truck.  A
tarpaulin was thrown over the cage - a blessing,
really, as when the sun came up we'd otherwise have
been in trouble as our eyes were just not used to the
light (it was bad enough under the electric lights in
the shaft head building), and we drove off.

We were excited, well, Matt, Ray and I were - Marc was
still worryingly silent and withdrawn.  But Ray
sounded a note of caution - in all our time as slaves
we'd never heard of anyone being released form the
mines.  So what was in store for us?  He mentioned the
dreaded organ banks - perhaps they had a need of parts
from men with our gene types!

THE BANKER

Our business in the kingdom had grown to such an
extent under the guidance of Andrew and his
"prompting" of the Sheikh that we had taken on new
office blocks, and I had to waste time on one of those
"senior management" inspections that plague every
organisation.  I was seething with impatience before I
could decently leave, with Andrew, to go to his house.

I barely noticed as Darren helped me change and shower
- he had become even more servile and concerned for my
needs than he had been on my previous visit, if such a
thing was possible, and I suppose I was vaguely
concerned by the ridges of scar tissue on his back,
buttocks and thighs, and the large areas of bruising
on his torso.  I asked him if master Andrew was
treating him well, and he said, sincerely I thought,
that the master was continuing to  teach him to be a
good, obedient slave.

I think Andrew was teasing me, as he knew of my almost
consuming passion for the four slaves.  He insisted we
dine before taking any action on them, and even over
dinner  he did not want to have a n interesting debate
about slave training, or sex - he kept dragging the
conversation back to matters of business, and of the
Bank's global strategy!  It's not easy to talk
sensibly about the economy, and overall profitability
of the Bank, when you have a raging erection.

The moment finally came, though, and four of Andrew's
house slaves dragged in what was clearly a large
crate, covered in a tarpaulin.  He clapped his hands,
and the slaves pulled the tarpaulin away with a
flourish, rather like those waiters do in very
expensive restaurants when they raise the covers to
reveal the dishes.

I was horrified at what I saw.  I was expecting the
four, proud - noble, even - men to be revealed.  What
I saw was a huddled group of filthy vagrants.  Thin,
bodies, coated in grime;  long, shaggy unwashed hair.
Awful full beards.  And the smell that wafted towards
us was simply frightful - it was lucky that the
contents of  my dinner was not expelled from my
throat, it was so nauseous!

Andrew saw the look of pure horror on my face, and at
once ordered the cage to be decently covered, and then
for it to be removed and for the slave s to be cleaned
up.

"Shall we have them with the standard slave trim here,
sir, or do you want them totally hairless again?"

"Well, Andrew, I suppose we'd better go for the
standard trim - the slaves are supposed to blend in
with your others, and give no hint of being the
sheikh's old ones.  Anyway, what is the 'standard'?"

"Oh, short, cropped hair on their heads.  Clean
shaven, of course.  Under arms trimmed to a reasonable
length.  Pubic hair trimmed neatly, balls  and ass
shaved to make sex easy... Do you want the hair left
on their bellies and chests?"

My horror at seeing the slaves was beginning to
subside, and as I thought of having the power to order
these kinds of processes to be performed on the
slaves, my cock began to stiffen.  I decided to allow
them to keep chest and belly hair, at least for the
time being, as I tend to prefer hairy men anyway, and
it would be interesting to see what these four looked
like a little more 'au naturel'.

Andrew issued more orders and whilst the slaves were
being cleaned and prepared he ordered a little
entertainment for us - two delightful black slaves
gave an exhibition of their native dances.  I can't
say that I'm normally at all interested in tribal or
ethnic art forms, but when these are being
demonstrated by superb specimens of the male form, I
am prepared to make an exception (especially as we
could observe them so properly, as they performed
naked).

When the slaves came back they were quite different.
Not as perfect a I remembered them, but somehow their
individual differences made them erotically more
interesting - the different colour of hair, the way
that the pattern of their body hair differed, and so
on.  But they were evidently not in that same peak
condition that I remembered them - they were thin:  it
was almost as if they had been starved;  they had lost
that healthy-looking dark tan, and were pale and wan
(I know that a tan has nothing to do with good health,
really - given the concern over melanomas, it's
probably quite the reverse, in fact.  But  I still
think that a dark tan looks better, and suits the
masculinity of most slaves better than a more insipid
paleness).

There seemed to be a problem with one of them, though
- he was staring around him in a most unslavelike
manner, and his companions almost clustered around him
as if he needed protection of some kind.

"Do you still want them, sir?"  Andrew asked.  "If
not, I can have them send back to the mines, or sell
them, or something...."

In spite of my initial disappointment, the slaves
still excited me, though.  There was something about
the idea that these four different men had been
brought together from their separate pasts and forced
to be totally alike.  Even though their differences
were now showing, I could still see the tremendous
underlying similarities between them - nothing could
change their basic body form, heights, and so on. It
might be interesting, it seemed to me, to get them
back to that state of near perfection in which I was
used to seeing them.

"No, Andrew, I'll keep them."

"So shall we proceed to re-brand them, sir?"

THE SLAVE'S STORY

When the cover was pulled off our cage and we were
allowed out we stood there in this big kind of hall,
with a couple of white guys looking down at us from a
low dais.  There were guards and other slaves all
around, and I somehow felt ashamed of my nakedness for
the first time in a long while.  Here I was, filthy,
dishevelled, vile hair, straggling beard, stinking to
high heaven, in this middle of this elegant place.

The two men looked at us for a couple of minutes
whilst they spoke to each other, then the guards
motioned to us to leave.

It was fantastic to feel real water all over my body
again!  I could have stood in the shower they pushed
us into for hours.  We all watched the dirty water
flowing into the drain, and gradually our bodies
emerged from under the accumulated grime   We were
still somehow dirty, though - the dirt was just
ingrained deep into our skin, I suppose,  So after
they cut our hair down to a  decent crop, trimmed our
nails properly (we'd kept our finger nails short by
biting them, but our toes nails had become obscenely
long and horny), and shaved us to get rid of our
beards, they trimmed and shaved our balls and our ass
cracks as you'd expect, and then pushed us into a
sauna.  When we came out we actually felt clean for
the first time for ages.  And when we looked at each
other, we could see  that the basic "us" was still
there, although we were  far from the magnificent peak
of fitness that we once enjoyed.

You'd have thought that Marc would have snapped out of
it, wouldn't you?  He looked physically in better
shape than the rest of us as he hadn't been working,
but he was still "not there".  The three of us had to
be really careful to hide his condition from the
guards - I mean, if they knew he was a walking zombie
they might have sent him to the organ banks, or
something.  So we "covered" for him, and almost made
it look as if he was OK:  we were all supposed to be
doing the same things, after all, so  it wasn't all
that difficult.

Finally they took us back into the big hall, and the
two men were still on the dais.  Arranged in front of
them were four of the fucking and punishment stools
that we were used to - mostly for fucking, of course,
from our time as pleasure slaves.

The guards pushed us down on to the stools on our
bellies, and lashed our arms to the front legs with
Velcro bindings as usual.  I thought we were just
going to be fucked - no big deal - but then one of the
two men on the dais let his white robe drop to the
floor and he was standing there almost as naked as we
were - he just had some sort of jock strap on - but
made of leather!  There was a thick leather belt
around his waist, and the pouch holding him in was of
the thinnest and most subtle leather I've ever seen -
you could clearly make out his cock and balls outlined
in it.

I began to tremble when the slaves wheeled into the
hall iron braziers containing glowing charcoal - my
whole being remembered the pain of being branded the
first time, and the metal implements sticking our from
the braziers looked very much like branding irons to
me.

I was right, of course.  The guy in the leather spent
a lot of time looking at the irons, spitting on them
to watch the spit sizzle to gauge if they were hot
enough, then, one after the other, we were branded
again.  Even though you think you're tough and strong,
and even though you think you can bear it, there's
just no way that the all-consuming pain of having the
hot iron pressed into your body can be dealt with.
All you can do is try to thrash frantically
(impossible, as you're held down securely), and scream
and scream.

All of us did, and when my turn came I just knew I was
screaming as loud as the others.  And it's the smell,
too, that really is a problem for you:  you know that
that harsh, acrid whiff of searing flesh is not some
barbecue that's going a bit wrong, but your own skin,
your own muscle.  If you weren't screaming so loudly
you'd want to retch and vomit, but that's just not
possible.

Marc was the last one of us to be done, and, to my
astonishment, when the iron bit into his ass, he
screamed, too.  This was the first sound I'd heard him
make since we had been sent to the mines, and I
actually thrilled to hear his voice again, even though
it was the voice of pain, despair, and acute agony.

You'll know, though, that it wasn't just our asses
that had been branded the first time, and to my horror
I realised that my arm was going to be done again,
too.  So once more the man in black made his cruel way
along the line of us, and seemed to take an
unconscionable time over all the preparations and
tests as he moved between us.

I thought it was all over, lying as I was, helpless,
drenched in sweat.  But they had other plans for us.

THE BANKER


Frankly, I think Andrew was taking this whole business
of the ownership and management of slaves a bit far.
He stripped off, to reveal that very skimpy and
suggestive black jockstrap made of thin leather:  it
was quite exciting, I suppose, as you know that I
thought he had a pleasing body, and somehow the belt,
ass straps and thin pouch of the jockstrap accentuated
his masculinity and sensuality.    But he made far too
much of the re-branding:  he'd explained that we
needed to get it done, replacing the sheikh's house
mark with that of the bank, but surely an electric
branding iron could have been used, cleanly and
efficiently?  All the process of braziers filled with
hot charcoal, bellows to blow it up to a white heat,
and the endless testing of the branding irons to make
sure they were up to temperature was perhaps rather
unnecessary.

They all screamed, as you'd expect, and I'm not
certain that I like to hear the cries of utter despair
from men who are being used in this way.  There's
something about the way that the harsh, frantic
screams they utter cuts through you, and although
there is some erotic charge to be got from seeing men
struggle against their suffering in this way, it's not
absolutely clear to me that it really is necessary, or
desirable.

I suppose that Andrew was sexually charged after his
efforts, but I do think it was rather cruel to then go
ahead and fuck one of them.  It's not as if he didn't
have enough pleasure slaves and others who he could
have called on, and judging from the desperate way
that the slave writhed to attempt to get away, then
shouted and raved, it must have been acutely painful
for him to have Andrew's body repeated slamming into
him - Andrew could hardly avoid hurting the slave as
he touched the fresh raw wound of the brand, after
all.  Mind you, the sight of Andrew's muscular
buttocks thrusting away was, as always, a real
delight, and as on this occasion he divested himself
of even the jockstrap, I was also able to feast my
eyes on his detumesing penis when he was finally
spent.

When the men were finally released, they looked
dreadful - I've told you they were no longer in that
peak, perfect condition that I remembered, and now
they simply just looked "broken" - utterly defeated
and totally wretched.  I did truly feel sorry for
them, knowing that only a few years ago they must have
been living a life where the things that had happened
to them would just have seemed like some sick fantasy.
 But, on the other hand, now that they were mine,
things could only improve for them - I don't believe
that a master needs to be cruel to have slaves obey
him, and I intended to bend these slaves to my will in
other ways.

THE SLAVE'S STORY

As we all lay there, the guy in the black came back,
examining each of us, then tore off his jock strap and
started to fuck Marc!  It must have hurt him, because
Marc can normally take even a very hard fucking
without complaint  - he screamed, though, as the guy
went into him, and continued to rant and shout as the
fucking progressed.  Mind you, it was a tough one -
that "slap, slap, slap" as the guy's flesh hit Marc's
told us that - and I suppose that it was really the
brand on Marc's ass that was causing the problem.

When it was all over and we had been released, we
stood there in a row, looking at the masters.  I kept
my head bent respectfully, of course, as I didn't want
to attract a punishment, but out of the corner of my
eye I could see Marc, but a subtly changed Marc -
there were tears falling down his face, and so he must
have been affected by the branding, or the fucking.
There was just no way that he'd have even been aware
of these things if his catatonic state had continued,
and I began to hope that he was recovering.

They led us off then, to a regular slave cell, and
left us in peace - although they gave us a big helping
of slave chow, which we fell upon ravenously.  It was
hard to sleep or anything as the brands on our asses
and arms really hurt, so we kind of all lay there on
our bellies, companionably close to each other but not
touching.  The "old" Marc seemed to be coming back -
he was never all that great on conversation, so I
didn't expect a lot of words from him, but he gripped
my hand, something he'd not done for a long time, and
smiled at me.

The next morning we were still all very painful, but
at least we felt a bit better when they fed us well
again, and we even managed to wash ourselves in the
shower without too much discomfort.

It's one of the problems of being a slave, of course,
that they never tell you anything. After we'd been
allowed to piss and crap, they just herded us into a
cage - a travelling cage, I suppose.  It was only just
big enough for the four of us, and it was really hard
to arrange ourselves so that our brands did not hurt.
We half sat, half lay there, wondering what was to
happen next.  Still, at least we were all still
together, and all still alive!  I don't know how I'd
have managed if they'd have decided to put us into
separate crates and send us all off in different
directions - we couldn't have stopped it, of course,
as we had no control over our lives, so I guess we
were lucky.

They draped the cage in tarpaulin again so we could no
longer see out, but Marc's claustrophobia was still
improving, as he didn't seem concerned by it -  I
suppose it was being able to hear what was going on
"outside" the cramped conditions we were held in that
made him able to bear it.

There was a lot of shouting, and the sound of a fork
lift truck, and we were lifted and put onto a truck, I
suppose, which drove off.  It was exciting to hear the
sounds of the real world again - as the truck inched
its way along we could hear other traffic noise, and
even the occasional cries and shouts of other people.
But soon the noise became more ominous, as we could
hear aircraft taking off, and that smell of kerosene
that's always around airports floated in.

More fork lift truck activity, and then there was a
"slam" sound, and it went quieter - and when there was
then that unmistakable noise and sensation of an
aircraft taking off, we knew that we'd been loaded
onto an aircraft.  But bound for where?  We sat there,
talking amongst ourselves (we hadn't been ordered to
remain silent, after all) and wondering where we were
going - it seemed to me that we might be being shipped
off to South America, to the organ banks that slaves
were always threatened with.  But then, as Matt said,
why would they have bothered to re-brand us if they
were just going to butcher us for spare parts for rich
drug lords?

There's actually very few ways of knowing how long
anything takes when you're in a covered crate, unable
to see out, and without a wrist watch or anything.  So
we had no real idea of how far we'd travelled , and
there were none of those cheery messages form the
captain that I remember hearing when I'd flown as a
passenger in "real life".  But we all felt the motion
as the plane started to descend, then that sickening
"jolt" as the wheels first hit the ground.

It must have been a strange place, as we only taxied
for a few moments, it seemed, before everything went
quiet when the aircraft engines were switched off -
surely we couldn't be at a major airport?  But then
there was shouting - this time in English - as the
cage was manoeuvred a bit, more fork lift truck
action, and then the unmistakable feeling of another
journey on a truck of some kind.  When we'd heard the
cheery English voices, we all whispered to each other
bout the possibility of calling out and attracting
their attention - but it was Ray who cautioned us
against it, saying that, after all, we might still be
somewhere where slavery was still legal, and that they
just happened to use an English company for freight
handling.  If we called out, they'd surely report us
to our owner as slaves are just not allowed to do that
sort of thing, and we just could not face further
punishment.

When our cage finally came to a halt we just sat there
for some time - it seemed to be colder outside, from
the air that was leaking, in, and I was glad my
brothers were with me to help keep me warm.

THE BANKER

I relied on the slaves' innate good behaviour to not
cause problems on the journey.  I was a little
concerned about the workers at our local airport deep
in the West Country who had to unload it - they were
not used to sleek corporate jets landing there anyway,
and there were no proper freight facilities so a few
strong men were needed to manoeuvre the crate from the
hold onto a truck.  Still, I'd "suggested" to my
captain that he reported to the airport as we
approached that we were only coming from Glasgow, and
so there was no tiresome customs or immigation process
to upset my plans - although he told me he was fearful
for his pilot's licence if he were found out, I half
jokingly suggested that he should be more fearful for
his yearly bonus if he didn't comply with my simple
wishes;  I'd told him that the crate contained rare
plants for my new gardens, and had no wish to go
through the tiresome procedures that the Ministry Of
Agriculture impose on such shipments.

The builders who had been working on the house
(several new rooms and so on were being added, as
befitted my new status) were enlisted to unload the
crate, and now I stood looking at it, still shrouded
in tarpaulin.  Now I really had to be brave:  if all
went well, as it should, as I had thought about this
for a long time and planned it carefully, then the
slaves would soon be settled into their new home.  On
the other hand, if they didn't believe me, even though
it would ultimately lead to their own destruction, I
would be ruined.  I'm not certain if there are still
laws on the stature book that prohibit British
citizens from trading in slaves, but at the very least
I had omitted a felony by illegally importing four men
without passports into the country.  The damage to my
reputation, whatever the legal implications, would
however be so extreme that I would have to resign from
the Bank - I could even now see the tabloid headlines
screaming "The Chairman and the naked men....."

So it was with some trepidation that I pulled back the
tarpaulin, unlocked the cage door, and commanded the
slaves to get out and line up in front of me.

I was relying on the fact that they would be
disoriented - they wouldn't really know where they
were, and I'd made sure they could not see the
countryside or anything as they journeyed here.
Likewise, the place we were in gave no hint of the
outside - it was an old shepherd's bothy, deep down in
the cleft of the valley running down into he sea,
totally without windows.  I intended this to be my
slaves' quarters, as it was convenient for the work
they were to do and well isolated fro the rest of the
estate and from my house. Their needs would be simple,
and there was a spring outside for fresh water, and a
large fireplace in the corner where they could build
log fires, using the copious timber from my estate, to
keep warm.

As they emerged from the crate I began to feel more
confident that my plan would work.  They all at first
stretched - I suppose their loom's would be stiff
after all that time cramped together - but then formed
a neat line and stood facing me, heads respectfully
bowed.

Without saying anything - as I thought it best to do
the deed quickly, before they could really think about
it - I went along the line of them putting around each
of their solid necks the "necklace" that I ad had
manufactured.  I'd pondered about having the radio
device built in to a solid collar, as I think that
seeing a muscular neck with a thick steel collar
around it is in itself arousing, but had decided that
it would be more humane to instead use thick steel
chain, with one inch links.  Solid collars can chafe
when the slave is working hard, I'd been told, and the
last thing I wanted was for them to be covered in
sores - after all, if they became infected, I would
have to call in a doctor, and this would all need to
unnecessary complications for me.  As I slipped each
chain on I used a little "superglue" to close the
special link at one end, so that they were on
permanently unless the slaves gained access to a
really tough saw capable of sawing through
case-hardened steel, and I had no intention of
allowing this.

THE SLAVE'S STORY

We weren't used to being cold!  Even since I was
enslaved I can't remember being anything other than
warm sometimes, and usually, hot.  I wanted to jump
around a bit, or at least rub my skin, to get warm,
but thought better of it. It was odd, though, to feel
that sensation again as the hairs on my arms and legs
started to stand up - I hadn't felt that in years, and
I'd forgotten what it was like.

When my master slipped my collar around my neck I
almost shouted out, as it felt icy against my skin.
But then something totally astonishing happened - he
pointed at a pile of clothes in the corner, and told
us to dress in them!

When you are used to being totally naked you just
forget about what clothes feel like.  It's odd,
somehow very constricting, to be covered at all, and
the fabric was at first really itchy, and I wanted to
constantly scratch at it.  It was only threadbare
jeans and a thin, long-sleeved T-shirt, but as we then
faced our master it seemed somehow so very different.


Then he told us "the house rules".  The collar that
was around my neck had some sort of radio thing inside
it.  If I went too close to the edge of the estate
where I was to live, I'd get at first a warning
electric shock, and then it would kill me!  Likewise,
in the centre of the estate was the master's house and
private gardens, and a similar system meant that I
could not go in there, either.  But then came the
chilling bit, and I can remember my master's words as
clearly as if he had just spoken them :  "However you
will come across people here on my estate from time to
time who are, like you, working.  Bu unlike you, they
are not my slaves.  You are allowed to speak to these
people in the course of your work on matters related
to the work that they, or you, are doing, but you must
not, of course, discuss anything at all about your
past lives, or your new life as slaves.  If it should
ever happen that the police come here and you are
subsequently 'freed', then a dreadful fate awaits you:
 you may enjoy a few brief weeks, or even months, of
freedom, but I have powerful friends whose influence
extends everywhere - here in England, and the USA,
South America.... everywhere.  You know how easy it
was for the enslavers to snatch you from your normal
lives I the first instance, so you should remember
that they would have no more difficulty in capturing
you again.  You would be taken back to the sheikh's
kingdom, where you spent some years as pleasure
slaves, I believe, but then immediately consigned to
the opal mines.  And this time there would be no
return, no escape, no rescue:  you would die down
there, crawling like works through the earth,
fulfilling some last useful purpose for your owners.
So be careful, be very careful, about what you say
about your lives, and to whom you say it.  I know that
sometimes people talk about 'a fate worse than death',
well, I believe you have experienced this already, and
you would not want to repeat the experience."

THE BANKER

Once they were collared, and they had heard my speech,
I knew I had them!  All of them looked terrible when I
referred to their experiences in the mines, and I knew
they would not willingly wish to repeat this.  There
are all sorts of ways of enslaving men and keeping
them enslaved - in the sheikh's kingdom in normally
involved the acceptance of slaves as being a normal
part of life, kept in their place by the threat of
punishment;  on some estates I had seen slaves
permanently fixed to their work stations by fetters
and chains;  in the opal mines, the physical
difficulty of escape did the trick.  Here, I was being
a little more subtle:  the chains around their necks
would constantly remind them of their status, and any
over attempt to escape would be prevented;  but on
those rare occasions when they met non-slaves, their
fear of a return to the mines would keep them in
check.

I went on to explain their new life to them:  this
bothy was their home, and they could make it as
comfortable as they chose - there was straw for
bedding, they could build a fire to keep warm, the
spring outside would provide them with fresh water,
and they could heat it over the fire for bathing.  I
would not restrict their food supply, provided they
worked hard:  sacks of slave chow were stacked in an
outhouse, and they could help themselves; and they
could supplement this with any wild fruit or nuts on
the estate if they wanted to, but they could not, of
course, go into my private gardens for the fruit and
vegetables that were grown there.  They were now
wearing their "winter uniform" - jeans and T-shirts.
No other clothing would be provided, as they were
expected to keep warm in the very coldest part of
winter by the efforts they exerted on my projects.  In
spring and summer they would just wear shorts.

Actually, this clothing had been a bit of a problem -
I needed eight pairs of jeans and eight Ts, and I
wanted them to change each night and always appear in
the morning fresh and clean:  but how can a
respectable banker buy this?  Fortunately the Internet
came to my aid, and I was able to acquire all these
things, and their work boots, relatively
inconspicuously:  indeed, it enabled me to buy the
used, shabby, almost threadbare stuff that I
considered it more appropriate for my slaves to wear,
rather than brand new items, at the exorbitant prices
that shops charge for the branded goods that are all
the rage with today's youth.

Then I explained that in future they would work -
proper, satisfying work, that was good for men's
bodies.  They would not need to spend hours working
out I the gym to keep themselves in proper condition -
the ambitious plans I had for the gardens would ensure
that their muscles were subject to the kind of
exercise for which a man's body was designed:  good,
honest toil.

  End Of Part Fourteen