Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2013 00:51:02 +0100
From: Ben Hur <ben-hur-of-judah@outlook.com>
Subject: The Unique Experience Part V

   My collaring being neatly finished, I was ordered by Omar to raise
myself from the anvil and the wooden bench to sit upright, and he was so
kind to give me a few seconds to recover my senses. Well, those few seconds
I needed indeed. After having sat up, I immediately felt the whole weight
of my new slave-collar pressing on my collarbone. Again I was upset - lying
down being collared was no great pleasure, the steel pressing continuously
severely against my Adam's Apple, but sitting while collared wasn't that
great either. And I knew that I would have to sit collared for many hours
in the uncoming days, weeks, months and perhaps years, toiling at the oars.

   To remind me that the collar wasn't the whole burden I would have to
bear when rowing that damned galley, the moment that I raised myself up of
course the chains going down from my hands to my right ankle started to
rattle again. The total weight of all the irons riveted to my body
literally made me grow dizzy. I needed a few seconds to overcome that and
find my clear consciousness back. No, it certainly wasn't easy to become a
slave!

   After a few seconds Omar approached me and tugged at my collar,
apparently again to test if the riveting was well done, as he had done
before with my other fetters. Of course, the rivet proved itself to be
totally unmovable - but even this superfluous controlling had an extra
depressing effect on my already not so well-tempered mind.

   Omar, on the contrary, seemed very well-tempered. Quite satisfied with
his piece of work, he said to me: 'That rivet will not come off, slave'.

   As though I still had some illusions about that.

   But if I indeed had some other illusions, illusions that with this
collaring the whole enslavement process was now over, Omar disabused me
immediately.

   'Stand up, G-46', he bayed, 'You have to get out of here before the next
slave arrives'.

   So I tried to stand up, and turned my body to the right, while lowering
my feet. Again my chains rattled, when I put my fettered right ankle on the
cold floor after I had done so with my left. Staggering through the weight
of the collar and the chains I tried to stand erect. Now for the first time
I had to bear the whole weight of those irons with my body only, without
any support of the bench or the anvil. It was an immense weight indeed. No:
trying to run quickly away had become even less an option than it already
had before. Again: I had no chance against my captors and thus no choice
than to prepare myself to set out for the direction they wanted me to move
in. So, each step in the opposite direction, leading to freedom, at all
essential moments seeming impossible, I inevitable moved further in the
direction of slavery.

   The direction I had to go was that of the door at the far end of the
hall, on the opposite side of the door through which we had entered. I had
to move to the next room. That was the direction from which that infernal
cry (from what was presumably another slave) had come when Omar was busy
fettering my hands. I remembered it with horror now, and worried again
about what might have caused it, but I didn't get much time to think it
over, as I had to concentrate on the moving itself. Omar showed me the way
I had to go, Ali walking behind.

   I assure you, it is not easy to walk when you have to bear the load of
one collar, two chains and three fetters. Again I had to take care not to
stumble, and also to take care that the thick anklet wasn't chafing my
ankle too much. And then moreover there was that neverending accompanying
noise, that continual rattling of my chains - yes, I started to regard the
chains riveted to my limbs already as MY chains, although it would still
take a lot of time until I regarded them as just another part of my body,
just always being there, as 'normal' a part of my body as my fettered limbs
themselves. To be honest: I never succeeded in doing that completely, you
shouldn't be resentful about the fact that I failed in this ultimate
respect. They always in some way remained a kind of unsolicited intruder
into my privacy, however trusty their presence in the end became to me.

   Above the rather clanking noise the chains produced, I heard off and on
the creaking of the big circular slave-tag that showed my slave-number,
dangling and swinging underneath my heavy collar, each time that its clip
(thanks to my movements) struck against the iron ring that connected it to
the thick steel band encircling my throat. There was nothing that I could
do against this irritating extra noise, as I needed both my hands to keep
my chains straight, apart from he fact that because of the shortness of my
chains I had to lower my head quite a lot to enable my hands to reach my
collar. With every now-inevitable new creak the swinging slave-tag reminded
me of the fact that I was now just a number.

   Perhaps you can imagine how it is on a galley, with dozens of straining
slaves at the oars, and thus dozens of rattling slave-chains and creaking
slave-tags at the same time! I at that very early moment still couldn't and
didn't try to do so either. The same creaking of iron to iron, for the
rest, was produced by the loose big ring attached to the fetter around my
ankle, and to stop that while walking I of course was unable to do.

   Whereas I thus hobbled to the exit, crossing the riveting room with the
cold concrete floor feeling unpleasant under my bare feet, I rather quickly
discovered that it might be less painful for my ankle if I didn't let the
connecting chains just hang down in a curve from my manacles, to have them
swinging with every step I made, but to take them firmly with both hands to
straighten them.

   When Omar, looking back over his shoulder after we had arrived at the
door, saw this, he made a grimace.

   'You're starting to learn, slave 46'.
   'And you'd better do this also in all other cases beforehand, to avoid
the whip', he added sneeringly.

   In a way I was too tired to react to it with showing myself
horrified. Nothing more than a short, not openly expressed, 'Go to Hell'
came to mind. I was now more horrified by the unknown waiting behind the
next door than by my still incomprehensible and distant future in the
galley. And I was right in preparing for first things coming first. I mean:
it is beyond the capacity of a human being to prepare himself for the full
impact of all the sufferings a galleyslave has to endure at the same
time. So he is better off dividing that into parts.

   To my surprise, Omar didn't open the door, but pressed on a button. I
heard a short ringgggg ... sounding on the other side of the door. After
some seconds I recognized footsteps on the other side and than it opened
inward.

   'You're finished with the last candidate, Abdel?'

   I couldn't understand the answer, but apparently it was yes, as Omar
continued: 'Then here is the next one'.

  Indeed: it was a slave production line here. For all the guys concerned
with the whole enterprise it had all become merely routine, everybody just
doing his job in the same familiar way as I would have done mine at
home. It only was an unusual job, at least it was in my opinion. For what
passes for normal in Saudi Arabia I can't say for sure, even less so today
since I have seen in the interim a great deal of its society from a very
special point of view, at least for westerners an unusual one.

   So, to what extent the galley I had to slave in was standard or
exceptional, I can't say, but after some years spent at the oars it
appeared to me more the rule than the exception, whereas at the start of my
service it seemed the reverse. It wouldn't have been otherwise for you, I
suppose. I mean: if you had been in my place, the existence of such a
galley would have been as big a surprise for you as it was for me. But all
those Arabs guys that handed me over the next guy one after the other
during my 'visit' at this unholy building near the harbor seemed to
consider it nothing special what they were doing, as if they had done this
already for years and years. And perhaps they had. They just did the whole
process of enslaving their western victims by each performing his
appropriate task: picking up newcomers from the airport like Mustafa,
receiving them at the entrance of that gloomy building like Ahmed, writing
down all their physical dates like Mohamed, forging together chains and
cuffs for them like Ali, et cetera. To Omar it was just as normal to rivet
an iron collar around a slave's throat (as if we were still living in some
distant past)as, me being a student of economic history at Amsterdam
University, writing a paper about the iron industry in some distant past
would have been to me.

   But let me not hold you up any longer with my troubled musings of that
pitiful moment when I stood there heavily chained waiting for what was to
come next. As Abdel had opened the door to the adjoining room after Omar
had rung, I of course had to move inside. So I did.

   I don't remember what I had expected to see at that moment - being
prepared for everything, at least for everything I could be prepared for on
the basis of my experience up until that moment - but the first view didn't
seem especially alarming to me.

   The room was perhaps only a little bit smaller than the one I had
left. There were the same three bare brick walls behind me, to my right and
at the far end, with another door over there. Again the light was coming
from the fourth wall, the one to my left. Not very much light again, as
little as there had been in the riveting room, but the courtyard behind the
small windows apparently continued past this new room. There were two
furniture groupings, one rather close to me and the other at the far end.

   Near me stood a very simple wooden chair, with a table next to it having
a lot of smaller stuff on display that I couldn't identify immediately. A
broom was leaning against a second table on my right. Behind the chair
waited the next employee of this professional company, like Abdel dressed
in the (by now) familiar aproned way. What did this mean? Were there more
shackles to come? I looked automatically to my last free limb, my left
foot, as I couldn't imagine any other part of my body needing another
fetter. But nowhere in this room did I see cuffs or chains - there weren't
any long benches against the three brick walls this time at all - and there
was no anvil visible either. And apart from that, why would they in that
case not do all the chaining in one room, instead of spreading it over two?

   In the far, again more gloomy, half of the room I saw another coal fire
burning, and ... I hadn't time to identify more now, as my guide during
this stage of my enslavement ended my thoughts by addressing himself to me
directly.

   'Sit down on that chair, slave', ordered Omar.

   And to the guy with the apron waiting behind: 'Mehmed, I leave him to
you. He's now all yours'.

   And, more sarcastically joking to me: 'Enjoy your short stay here,
slave'.

   The hateful undertone was not without meaning. This short stay here
indeed became the worst intermediate station in my passage to hell.

   But it started not as bad as it could have been. At least: it was not
worse than what I already had gone through.

   Careful not to hurt myself by my heavy irons that swung with every
uncontrolled movement of my body, I sat at the wooden chair, letting my
chains partially rest on the floor. After some final clanking they were
silent for awhile. Wile I was doing this, Omar turned his back to me and
left the room with Ali through the door through which we had entered just
half a minute ago.

   Then I saw Mehmed take some machine from the table, which I immediately
recognized to be a kind of razor, although a rather rough and big one -
more intended for shaving sheep than shaving men, it seemed at first
sight. Well, in fact I had become cattle now, indeed slave cattle, only
useful for them because of my muscular strength and what they would be able
to press out of those muscles at the oars. And apparently this piece of
slave cattle, I now said grimly to myself, was to receive a special
haircut. Fearing something much more horrible, at the moment my hairstyle
didn't worry me too much. In the first place, there was no one in my future
slave neighborhood who might comment on it anyway.

   Be that as it may, what Mehmed held was the only modern electric machine
I would see them using during the whole process - it was an unforeseen
break of style in the whole pseudohistorical re-creation. But apparently
they deemed efficiency important too, more important in this instance than
historical accuracy and authenticity. And efficient it was. At least much
more efficient, in the sense that it did its duty much quicker, than if
they had tried it manually, say in the traditional way with razorblades,
water and shaving soap (or without the last, to be more crude).

   Again be that as it may: the decision about what was to be used to shave
me was not up to me. There wasn't any decision about what was happening to
me that up to me any longer anyhow. If they decided to do it that way, I
had to accept. In the same way, I had to accept the kind of haircut they
would deem appropriate for a galleyslave. It turned out to be a rather
simple haircut, not a very sophisticated or fashionable one.

   But after I sat down, something totally unexpected happened, at least
totally unexpected by me. It would not have been unexpected to them. After
Mehmed started the electric razor, which made a lot of noise and was
shaking awfully, without warning he with one coarse pull shoved the front
flap of my loincloth (that covered my crotch) aside like a curtain, and
after a quick look at my rather hairy genitals placed this damned bulky
razor against my left ball!

   I jumped up, perhaps more because of fright than because of the pain,
although it was indeed a horrible painful feeling. I mean: I had shaved my
genitals several times in the past, but that was always done very carefully
with a fine-tuned razor intended for human beings, and by a friend who knew
about my tender spots in this very intimate zone of my body. Mehmed hadn't
the slightest idea about my most tender spots, and if he had it presumably
wouldn't have bothered him at all. For him I was just the nth cattleslave
to be shaven quickly before the next one would come in. No room for
personal treatment or mental care left!

   The fact that I suddenly jumped up, and by that interrupted his work,
apparently irritated him greatly, as he barked to me: 'Don't move, you
damned slave, otherwise I might cut your eggs off totally'.

   I sat back down and this time stayed in my chair, although it was
difficult to stand it when he was going through my crotch with that rough
razor in such a rude and speedy manner as if he was clearing his way
through some African brushwood. Have you ever had your balls shaved with a
machine that seems designed more for shaving the balls of bulls? If so,
then in that case you would be an exception in Europe or America, I would
guess. Well, up until that moment at least, I wasn't that exception. For me
this was all an unknown experience, and I would have preferred that it had
stayed that way. The feeling of this primitive machine touching and
clearing my skin was as if Mehmed used the coarsest kind of sandpaper to
remove all my pubic hair. I groaned because of the pain it produced, but
Mehmed didn't cast a glance at my suffering and went on with his job in a
surly manner.

   To my horror, Mehmed's indifferent handling of my male member moreover
caused me to get an erection, which I wasn't able to suppress immediately -
only after having for a short while pricked challengingly in the air, my
cock softened again, when Mehmed was already moving his machine to the next
square inch of my crotch. My God, this fucking bastard might think that I
was a masochist and would like being treated like that! But again, the
barber didn't raise an eyebrow, as he wasn't interested in my reaction at
all, neither my mental nor my sexual one. My person didn't bother him, I
was just a piece of hairy slavemeat to him, only to be prepared in a proper
and efficient way for its future life on the galley. He was just doing the
job he was intended to do, he did his best and he did it fast.

   In the end my pubic hair indeed was gone. I can't say that he did it
very securely, but he did it in a profound way. Not only nearly all my hair
was gone afterwards, some parts of my skin were too. My cock felt utterly
raw and vulnerable now, as if it had been shredded like a carrot. Its color
now was as red as that. And the same was true for my balls. But at least
they were still there. I recognized some little bleeding on the left one,
but that stopped very quickly. That wasn't the worse. The worse was that
for the time being all the feeling was gone out of my genitals, it was in a
way as though they were not there any more, as if I had become an
eunuch. Luckily, I wasn't to be mutilated as far as that.

  Work having finished downstairs, after pushing back the front flap of my
waist-cloth, Mehmed moved his razor up to my chest. Like a lawnmower he let
it go from left to right and back. When all my chest hair was gone too, my
skin there felt as raw as that in the region of my crotch. Then it was my
armpits' turn: the same shaving method, the same bald result, the same raw
feeling afterward.

   You may wonder why they all did this to me and shaved all my body hair
to give me smooth skin everywhere, as I wasn't prepared for a beauty
contest but for serving at the oars. The reason is first and foremost a
hygienic one, as slaves being chained to their seat at a galley, being
chained already as such, have some problems cleaning all parts of their
body as carefully as somebody would do who is going up for an important job
interview. Well, up for a job application I had been indeed, but for the
task that was lying ahead my muscular power was more important than my
vocal one, and in fact I was supposed to keep my mouth shut during the
whole admission procedure and thereafter, only perhaps to be pardoned for
breaking the silence for some more or less loud 'Ahhhs' if the pain that
their harsh treatment of my body created would be agreeable, unbearable, or
at least more than I could suffer. It soon was to be.

   However, being shaved makes it easier for a galleyslave to become not as
quickly the evil-smelling working-animal as otherwise would be the
case. Because I can assure you: all those toiling bodies at the oars,
forced to slave more than they would do voluntarily thanks to the whip,
produce a lot of sweat every minute, and their continuous perspiration,
hour after hour, day after day, gives that special odor to the half-open,
not really air conditioned rowing section of the galley that somebody who
is forced to stay there already for more than ten minutes - and a
galleyslave is so - will not easily forget.

   For that reason, everything that may possibly help to counteract the
stench of sweat I would soon, from the moment that I was chained to my oar
the first time, more than welcome. And although I hated this rough and
rather painful treatment of my body by that fucking razor machine, it would
be used on all the slaves regularly when the galley was resting in port,
and I was always afterward in a way thankful that they had freed me from my
superfluous body hair, which otherwise would cling to my skin because of
the surface sweat and dirt, and together with that in that case could make
a good hiding place for all kinds of still more unwelcome vermin.

   The same is true for your facial hair and for the hair on the rest of
your head. As a galleyslave you don't need it to look more attractive for
your honeymoon anymore, and in the Arab region you don't need it as a kind
of protection against cold temperatures either. Apart from that, beards and
moustaches (especially in the Arab world) are the sign and the right of a
free man who can go where he wants. And, as perhaps will have become clear
to most readers by now, a galleyslave can't.

   So after having had my genitals, my chest and my armpits totally shaven,
and already being without any facial hair, it now was the turn for my head,
where the lack of facial hair was uptil now compensated by my beautiful
wavey light-brown hair that I wore neatly trimmed, covering just my ears. I
had always been very proud of it, but that no longer made any sense: it had
become a obstacle for quick processing. There was a lot of work to be done
by Mehmed, but he fixed it in a rather short time, not being solicitous
about the details. I can't say I really had foreseen that, and I surely
can't say that I liked it.

   Mehmed made no ceremony of it. He placed his lawnmower an inch down from
the left side from the top of my head and then just pushed it, as if he had
to scrape stones, forcefully from my forehead to the back of my head,
cutting off and pulling out every hair it found on its boisterous
way. Thereupon the next strip was shaved, and the next, till all the hair
on the left side of my head was gone. It felt very strange and naked, I
never in my life had had my head shaven. As it would have made no sense to
resist or even to protest, I underwent this radical change of my outward
appearance rather passively, coping with my general fear for the future.

   After the left side was done, Mehmed did the same with my right side:
beginning just right of the top and then shaving down strip after strip,
till all hair was gone on that side also, and my skin there also felt
raw. And naked, very naked. But to my surprise, he thus left untouched one
strip of hair on the top of my head, perhaps a couple of inches wide, only
taking a pair of scissors of the table to cut it a couple of inches
long. In this way, I was shaven bald left and right, with a small strip of
thick hair standing upright from my forehead back to my neck, like a kind
of cock's comb.

   How I came to know that rather immediately? After having finished his
work, Mehmed kindly took a mirror from the table and - until now having
done all the stuff totally silent - waved it in front of my eyes.

    'Well, boy, this is your new slave haircut for the galley. The same as
all your fellows already have. Hope you like it'.

   Of course I didn't. It looked horrible. I didn't recognize myself any
longer in the rather anonymous face that stared at me from the mirror. Yes,
those were my eyes, my nose, my mouth, my chin - but for the rest? All my
personality, my own identity was gone with my hair, with this primitive
shaving, I looked like a criminal, interchangeable with all other criminals
- and of course this was intended. It's the reason they not only do it with
prisoners, but also with recruits in the army: to alienate you from your
former own appearance, your former ego, to transform you into a new person,
or better: into a non-person.

   And for this reason they of course do it also, and even in the first
place, with slaves. Shaving slaves (nearly) bald and giving them the same
identical impersonal haircut, is not only done for hygienic reasons, as in
the case of shaving their armpits or genitals. It's also a standard imposed
on slaves to make them look more like slaves, to deprive them of all
personal marks of identification, to take away their personality, to
dehumanize them and to reduce them to a number, as they are the lowest of
the lowest in human society - and especially in the hierarchical one of
Saudi Arabia they are! - destined never to regain any personal identity at
all.

   This way it helps the slaves themselves identify themselves as mere
slaves too. And this in turn will make it easier for them also to really
behave like slaves, to act as slaves should do, which helps them to avoid
needless lashes from the bullwhips of their severe overseers, who will not
accept any behavior that is not appropriate for a slave. The slave-tag and
the collar, which I now for the first time could admire thanks to the
offered mirror too, of course fulfill the same mental function, to promote
the necessary mindshift that is needed for a slave to function well.

   I for that reason was justly disgusted by what I saw. This wasn't Tom
anymore, whom I was looking at. This indeed was an arbitrary slave, only on
behalf of an easier identification by the authorities numbered G-46 by its
slave-tag to distinguish it from all others.

  But maybe I did forget to tell you a few pages of my story ago, that the
worst was still to come. If so, I'll tell you now that it still was. It
indeed was coming soon. Because that infernal cry of that other slave, that
didn't leave my mind all the time, wasn't caused by shaving, I was rather
sure about that. And my assumption proved to be right. So after being
completely shaved I was not without reason frightened by the thought of
what might come next.