DRAY SLAVE
By Pete Brown. petebrownuk @ yahoo.com Read all of Pete's stories at groups.yahoo.com/group/petebrownseroticstories
Author's Introduction:
One of the stories I've enjoyed writing most recently is "Steve's First Job" (also posted to nifty authoritarian), told as a series of e-mail exchanges between Steve and his best buddy, Stu. Stu has gone off to college, but Steve is to work for his father to "get to know the business from the bottom up". Steve's first job, we learn, is to become a draymaster in charge of a heavy dray making local deliveries - a dray pulled by slaves. Most of the story is about how Steve "recruits" and then trains his coffle of new dray slaves to turn them into a really crack team of which he can be proud. I like the story because it gave me a chance to explore new ways of telling a tale, and because it also fits neatly into my current themes of a "different" future USA, where there has been a second Civil War (see also, for example, "The Spoils Of War").
Amongst the stories by other authors that I personally enjoy and re-read is the pair called "My Buddy" and "The Other Side Of The Coin" by Bill Smith and George Edington, respectively. This pair of tales tells of the purchase of a newly-enslaved man from the perspective both of the slave, and the buyer. Intrigued by this, I decided to do something similar: "Dray Slave", therefore, tells the story in "Steve's First Job" from a third point of view- that of one of the dray slaves himself. My only problem in writing the story has been in giving the slave a name: "Steve" has a peculiar resonance for me, and regular readers will know that I generally select this name for the "hero" of my stories - but that name has been "taken" by the trainer/driver already, and so, unusually, this is "Dave's" story!
Pete Brown
DRAY SLAVE
Part One
They captured me after the siege of Raleigh. I suppose I was lucky really - some of the battles in what became known as the Second Civil War were pretty dramatic. And I suppose that civil wards bring out the worst in people - there are just too many similarities between the two sides, and they know each other too well. They treated us pretty well, all things considered, though - it was hard, in the immediate aftermath of that bloody siege, to find enough food and water for the civilians, let alone for captured Marines like me, but the Southern commander must have been a pretty decent type as they managed to scrape up enough rations to make sure we got at least one meal a day. It was pretty humiliating being disarmed, though, and then made to just sit there inside the Stadium - well, I suppose they didn't have anywhere else to put us, and with a few of their soldiers around the perimeter of the field with submachine guns it was easy to keep the couple of thousand of us together, with no chance of us escaping.
As you might expect, though, they were keen to get us shipped out to a proper prisoner of war camp as soon as possible, and after three days we were loaded into trucks and driven across the South to a "proper" camp on the outskirts of Charleston. No wonder those Southerners won - they had evidently put a whole lot of effort into planning things, and they even had this big camp ready for all the prisoners they clearly thought they'd capture. It was a bit like a proper military base, really - well, I suppose it might have actually been one at some point, as there were rows of barracks huts neatly lined up, a big mess hall, and all the sort of facilities you expect to find like a gym, medical centre, and so on - the only thing that was missing was a PX, which turned out not to be a problem for us as we didn't have any money anyway! It looked really well run - as our truck went in through the gates we saw the usual "bull" things that you see at all bases - neat signs, a row of marker stones along the edge of the roadway painted freshly white, and of course men: man marching and drilling, doing exercises, and generally getting on with everyday life. Most of them were in some sort of uniform, although it was obvious from the mixture of stuff that this was a holding base for prisoners from several units.
They adopted a pretty simple way of running the place, too - all us prisoners were just herded in through the gates, and then we were left to our own devices. We were all soldiers, though, and we were soon sorted out - the place was run by one of our own Colonels who'd been captured a lot earlier, and he maintained normal army discipline. Those of us who'd lost most of our uniforms were found some bits and pieces of fresh clothing, there was an orderly hut assignment to prevent over crowding, and the Colonel insisted that we drill and so on every day and respect the officers.
He had all us "newbies" line up on our first day there and told us that it was, after all, probable that we'd be freed very soon as it could only be a matter of a few weeks before the industrial might of the North triumphed, and then we'd all be going back to our regular units. So we needed to obey our officers and sergeants, and he wanted us to maintain a "tight ship" so we'd be ready: he didn't want any slovenliness, or for us to allow our bodies to go to soft. So we'd be exercised and drilled, and he told us that if there was any breach of discipline we'd be punished, by his officers - a small area of the camp and one of the huts had been designated as a jail, and we'd be sent there if there was even the slightest suggestion that we were not behaving like proper soldiers; and, of course, once we were freed and back in our regular units, we'd be subject to normal military discipline again and might be reduced in rank, or lose pay., or something.
It worked well, really - we were all a pretty disciplined lot, and we were used to living on a base.
It was hard not to be able to leave at all to go downtown to a bar, as we would have done normally, but, all in all, it wasn't a bad life. You got used to seeing the big mesh fence all around the place, the rows of barbed wire on top, and the guards patrolling with guns immediately outside, but I suppose that's what prisoner of war camps have always been like., Mind you, given that we were still in the USA, I do think they could have put a few phones in and let us make collect calls to our folks back home - it wasn't a particular problem for me as I was divorced and didn't get on with my bitch of an ex-wife, but for some of the guys, with wives and families, it was really hard to be so close, and yet so far away.
None of us anticipated the total collapse of the North, of course. As I said, the Colonel had told us that we might expect to be released within a couple of months when the South collapsed, but instead of that, it was the North who just caved in. Those sneaky Southern bastards made some deal or other with the Arabs, the North's oil was cut off, and that was basically it: a modern war is a mechanical war, and without oil, nothing moves. So there we were , prisoners of war, all nice and snug in our camp, drilling, exercising, and, I suppose making the best we could of things.
Some time later it was the Colonel himself gave us all the bad news - he had us lined up neatly on the parade ground and the Southerners had even given him a PA system so we could all hear - there were, after all, a couple of thousand of us at least. He began by giving us the facts as he knew them : the news that the North had capitulated, and when there were angry murmurs and movements in the crowd, he barked at us to maintain the discipline that the army expected from soldiers. Then he went on to give us the really bad news - well, the war had all started over "States' rights" as you probably know, and the desire of the South to reintroduce slavery, and now that they'd won, that was what was going to happen . And it had been decided by the New Congress that all those who had been guilty of participating in the war were to be enslaved: and that meant us! There was a lot more muttering, and some shouting then, but the Colonel's a pretty tough man and I think it was his iron will that maintained discipline that day. He went on to say that as slaves we no longer had any rights at all, and that of course meant that if the Southerners wanted to kill us, they could - there was no longer any fear of them being guilty of war crimes or anything, as under our country's new laws, slaves were property and could be treated in any way that their owners wanted. He advised us that the best thing to do was to maintain our discipline, as good soldiers: that way, we would at least stay alive. And as he pointed out, "whilst there's life, there's hope."
After that, of course, we all stood around talking, and some of the guys were in favour of rushing the guards and making a mass break. There weren't all that many of them, and there were a couple of thousand of us, and it seemed likely that if we overpowered them there'd be some loss of life, but that the overwhelming majority of us would get out. Some of us got together that night to plan how we'd go about it, but the Colonel heard about it and I, and some of the other guys who'd been planning it, were summoned to his presence.
"We should all be proud of the fighting spirit that you men exhibit", he told us. "But one of the things that an officer learns is that it's necessary to consider the consequences of any planned action. I don't doubt that you could overpower the guards here with some casualties on our part, but what then?"
We all looked a bit puzzled, and he went on "We've all been classified as slaves, remember? We're no longer soldiers or even civilians - we're slaves. We have no rights. And the penalty for escaping slaves is always death, they tell me. So gradually you'd be hunted down and, one by one, put to death."
"Sir, they can't do that to us...", one of the guys protested, "It's contrary to the universal declaration of human rights."
The Colonel shut him up promptly. "Oh yes they can! We no longer have 'human rights' as we're slaves. I've read the laws the New Congress has passed and it makes it very clear that the penalty for escaping slaves is death. And any citizen has the right to shoot such a slave.... So what are you going to do if you get through the fence? You've got no money, no papers, nothing. You'd be on foot, here in the South, and I guess a lot of the folks around here are not very kindly disposed to us Northerners, so they'd relish the opportunity of taking revenge. And even if you did get out of the immediate area, what then? Even assuming you did get back to your home, it wouldn't alter things as slavery is now the norm right across the USA - you'd still be escaped slaves in Des Moines, or New York, or San Francisco, or wherever. It would only need a neighbour to turn you in, or for a suspicious cop to stop you and ask to see your papers, and you'd be in the same position."
He paused for breath, and went on "It's a tough decision, I know, but it seems to me that we have very little choice: be slaves, or be killed."
Well, after that some of us met to talk about the whole escape thing again, and some of us were still in favour of getting away - we didn't want to be slaves, and even though it was risky, it seemed worth it to break out and then do our best to get across the border to Mexico, or Canada, or somewhere - some of us believed that in the chaos that would be reigning around the place, it might be our only chance to give the Southerners and the cops and everyone the slip. The Colonel got wind of this meeting, though, and called me and some of the other ringleaders into his hut again.
"I've told you that this is suicidal, and I won't countenance it", he told us. "I won't have my men needlessly laying down their lives. I order you to abandon this escape attempt, and to respect normal military discipline."
"But we're no longer soldiers, sir!", I reminded him. "....As we've been declared to be slaves - you told us that yourself. So we can do what we think best, and we no longer have to obey your orders...."
I thought he was going to have apoplexy! But there wasn't much he could do about it, was there? If we were never going back to our regular units, we had nothing to fear from military discipline. So we carried on planning, but a bit more secretly this time
But we found out that he had regular dealings with the camp commandant, as the moment they began taking us away from the camp in small lots, us conspirators were amongst the first to be taken, and so the whole scheme collapsed.
I suppose we all knew they'd started slave trading. Men would be called over to the admin block, and mostly never came out again - we saw the trucks leaving, heading for the Interstate, and it was awful to think of those guys being taken off to work in the factories, or mines, or fields, or wherever. But what could we do? There no longer seemed to be the enthusiasm for a "suicide" attack on the guards followed by a mass break out, and so we would have to put up with what was in store for us.
I was actually working out when a guard came over and told me to go over to the admin block, so I knew my time had come: I was dripping with sweat, as I really like to keep fit and wanted to go and collect my stuff and have a shower, but the guard told me to forget it as if I was selected to go that day, I wouldn't be taking any of my things with me anyway.
I'd never been inside the admin block before, and the guard shepherded me and about twenty other guys into a large bare room. We stood there, in what remained of our uniforms - in my case my combat boots, camo trousers, and a T as I'd been working out - and two men came in, with a couple of armed guards. One could only have been a kid - eighteen or so, I'd guess, but the other was in his mid-thirties. They were both smartly dressed in suits and big Fedora hats, and I suppose one might even have said the kid was sharply dressed in what were the current season's fashion (well, what looked as if they'd become the current season's styles, from what I remember before the war began). One of the guard snapped at us to form a straight line by the long wall, and the older guy said calmly "No, not all of them - we don't want any niggas."
It sounded so shocking, to hear the "N" word used like that, but he went on "Our experience is that these Northern niggas never acclimatise properly to being slaves. They're so damned uppity, as they're so used to demanding their rights and so on. They just can't get used to the fact that they haven't got any rights, none at all. So it's preferable to have only whiteys - they learn to adjust quicker, we find ."
I suppose that was the first time I'd heard anyone call a group of men "whiteys", but as time went on I was to learn that this was the terminology regularly used in the slave trade: whiteys and "spanics'" - Hispanics - were highly prized as they were considered to be versatile and suitable for many types of work, niggas came next as they were thought to be strong and highly adaptable for heavy manual labour; and the rest were lumped together into the categories of "chinks" (Asiatics in general), and "'breeds " - short for half-breeds - slaves of mixed parentage. It was, I suppose, my first introduction to the way in which free folk now perceived their fellow men, once the tag of "slave" had been applied to them.
The guard dismissed the five blacks from amongst us, and the rest of us - fifteen now, I guess, just stood there.
The two guys in the smart clothes then walked slowly up and down the line, looking at us intently. Then the older one said to the guard that he wanted to take a closer look at us, and that he wanted us to strip!
I thought at first I'd misheard - I mean, these men looked as if they were selecting those of us they wanted for a work assignment, and you don't expect to have to take your clothes off for that, do you? But the guard rapped out that we should strip off, and when one of us objected, he touched him with something and the next moment the guy was writhing around on the floor. Two of the others went to help him, and the guard shouted out "That's the first lesson you new slaves need to learn - a slave prod hurts! And that was only at half power - at full power it can knock you out, induce vomiting, cause muscle spasms.... As it is, your buddy is just hurt temporarily, but I'd advise you all to take care! Now, do as I've fucking well told you, and get naked!"
We all felt a bit awkward, striping off like that, I suppose. Not that we weren't used to it - I mean, in the Marines, you spend a lot of time in the barracks and communal showers and so on, so there's nothing unusual in being naked with your buddies. But when there are other guys in the room who are clothed - and pretty sharply dressed, too - then it's all a bit different. And when you stop for a moment and consider that the reason you're doing this is so that they can inspect you - inspect you as a slave, as they want to choose some of you to go and work for them - then it's a wholly different experience.
Fifteen of us stood there then, mostly in our standard army issue cotton boxer shorts, and the two men went up and down the line again. I heard the older one say to the younger "This is a pretty good bunch, actually - when I called ahead I told them to line up big strong guys. It's not so tough pulling the dray generally, until you get to an uphill stretch. But it's the loading and unloading - you need a bit of power, to haul all those big fridge-freezers into and out of the customer's home. And, anyway, I think it looks best if the slaves are pretty evenly matched - it looks less satisfactory to have an odd jumble of all shapes and sizes when they're all meant to be working together."
The younger one cut in "Yes, but how shall I pick? "
"Well it doesn't matter all that much. I also said I only wanted men between their early twenties and early thirties, and they seem to have done a good job as all these seem to fit the bill. Much younger than that and they haven't put on enough muscle - rather like you, Steve! I know you did a lot of athletics and stuff at High School, but a man doesn't really put on power until he's in his twenties. And you don't want them too old, as we need to get a reasonable working life out of them - we're going to spend a lot of money training them and stuff, and we'll need to recoup our investment."
The younger guy - Steve, I supposed - nodded, and the older one continued "And there's another advantage to having them all much the same age - it helps them to bond. Remember, you've got to put together a real team if you're going to get the most work out of them, and a team forms best if the guys all like each other.
It's easier for them to bond if they're much the same age - especially as we want them to have a healthy sex life."
I listened to all this with interest. No, that's not the right word. At one level it was interesting, but at another, it was scary. No, not even scary - fucking outrageous! These men were going along and choosing us as if we were some sort of commodity, not real men. A small bead of sweat trickled down my back as I thought that this was, presumably, what being a slave was all about - free men could jut come and pick and choose you, and you had no say in the matter. I mean, what was all this fuck about pulling a dray and unloading stuff? I was a trained soldier, a proud marine, capable of fighting for our country.... No, "their" country, now, I suppose: the country of the free, of which it seemed I was no longer a part. Still, they wanted us to have a good sex life - so perhaps it wasn't all bad! There was no sex in the POW camp as women prisoners were somewhere else, and it was a fair time since I'd managed to pick up a woman and fuck.
They went down the line again and this time the older guy - who I heard "Steve" call Jon - advised him to "weed out the chinks". I knew one of the guys - he was in my unit and a fucking good soldier, someone who'd you'd really want watching your back when times got tough. He was third generation, as his grandparents had come here from Laos or Vietnam or somewhere after some skirmish in the twentieth century, and he was a s American as I was. But I heard the older guy tell the younger one "Don't bother with the chinks - although they work hard, and these are right up to the spec we set for weight and everything, I don't think they look as good as a a set of proper whiteys, and we have to remember that the reputation of the Company depends on not only delivering a good service to our customers, but on being seen to do so: a set of pure whiteys is much more exciting for the customers."
We were down to about twelve of us now, and the two men went along the line again. This time the older guy said "Now, Steve, take a really close look: although they're quite closely matched in height, some of them are a bit out from the norm... You can get two same height guys, but one has a long body and short legs, the other big long legs and a short body.... We need a good balance, consistency, powerful legs for those hills, but a good strong body for the loading and unloading. So why don't we eliminate those guys with very long bodies, or very long legs?"
Once more the two of them came down the line, and rejected some of us. I don't know whether I was glad to still be there, or if I should have hoped that I'd been rejected. It sounded like I would still be kept with some of my buddies, at least, and whilst there's a group of soldiers together, there's always a faint hope that we might escape, I suppose. After all, once things had settled down a bit after the war, and we were used to the little ways of slavery, how hard could it be just to slip away and melt into the crowd and make our way north to Canada, or south to Mexico?
Finally, there were ten of us left, and the young guy, Steve, said to the older one "Now what, Jon? We've been up and down this line several times, and they all look pretty much the same to me now! We've eliminated all the obvious ones. But we only need nine slaves, you said, so how do we pick? Toss a coin, or something?"
"Steve, there is one thing we haven't yet judged...."
"And what's that? They all much pretty much alike to me - same height, same shape, nice and muscular, pretty good looking bunch, I'd say...."
"Steve, you're forgetting one thing - the uniform! What else do we care about?" As he said this, the man Jon turned to one of the guards and said "Get them totally naked, will you?"
"Right, you guys, drop those boxers!", he snapped at once. I went to protest, but it was just as well I was a bit slow off the mark as a guy at the other end of the line who did was soon writhing on the floor as the guard used his prod on him. "Now, unless you all want a touch of the prod, get naked", he snarled, and we all did. I pushed my boxers down and stepped out of them, and just stood there in my army boots and my dog tags.
Look, I know I've told you that I'm used to being naked around the other blokes in my unit, and, anyway, I've got absolutely nothing to be ashamed of - I've never had anything to even be concerned about when I compare myself with the other guys in the showers, and even that bitch of an ex-wife never complained about the size of my dick! But it's one thing to be naked with your buddies, or your wife, and quite another when you're a slave, being inspected - and selected, even - on the size of your dick! I felt a mixture of shame, and anger, and embarrassment: shame, at being used like this, at having failed as a soldier; anger that these guys could order us to do this, and then treat us just as if we were some sort of prize stock, who they were selecting on the basis of their physiques (well, I suppose that's what we were, really - to them, we were just stock!); and embarrassment - well, I don't know why I was embarrassed really, as, after all, none of this was really my fault. It was the fucking system, after all, the system that could turn good, honest marines, free Americans, into slaves. It was these Southerners who ought to be embarrassed, embarrassed at treating other human beings in this way.
They went up and down he line, though, and at one point I thought that the older one was even going to reach out and touch my dick! If he had, slave prod or no slave prod, I'd have hit him, I can tell you - no one messes with my dick! I didn't even really like women touching it,, well, except to give me a good blow job, of course.
One of the guys in the line-up was in my platoon, and it was no surprise, actually, when Steve and Jon picked him out and told the guard he was unsuitable. He was a bit of a joke in the barracks, actually, as although he was big and tough and a hard fighter like the rest of us, his dick just wasn't as well developed as the rest of him and he was strangely out of proportion. I don't suppose it mattered much normally, as everyone knows that a lot of the difference goes away when you're at full wood, and he was known as being a bit of a stud, actually, always pulling some woman or other on the weekends, and so there couldn't be all that much wrong with him. But whatever these "uniforms" were they were talking about, his small dick seemed to make a difference to those selecting us, and so he was told to dress and go back to the camp.
The rest of us - nine, now, were left standing there, and the men Steve and Jon went off to do some paperwork - to actually "buy" us, I suppose. I know it sounds odd to be using that word when you're dealing with men, and not horses, or cattle, or dogs, or something, but that's what it was: they were off to pay money, and then we'd "be" theirs - they'd own us! Somehow, just thinking about this sent a shiver down my spine. We went to pick up our clothes and put them back on, but the guard snapped "Stay naked! Who the fuck told you it was OK to get dressed?"
There was a bit of muttering from some of the guys, but the even though there were only two guards, they had slave prods and there was an awful lot of bare skin around to aim them at, so we just did as we were told, and stood there. It wasn't as if it was cold or anything, but you feel pretty foolish, actually, standing around like that bare-assed. I mean, usually when you're naked you're getting into or out of bed, or you're in or out of the shower. You don't usually stand there with a bunch of other guys with your clothes all piled up behind each of you, just wearing army boots, do you? A horrible thought started to come to me - well, I'm only twenty three, and you know how it is at that age: you have a lot of erections! Suppose I began to throw a wood now? What would I do?
I know it's perfectly natural and everything, but that's not the point, is it? Even when you live a bit of a communal life as a marine you don't get hard in front of your buddies. The problem is that the more I thought about it, the more I thought I could feel my dick starting to swell with blood. You probably all know how it is - you get that little feeling of excitement, and then your dick starts to stir, moving away from your balls just ever so slightly.... Oh no, fuck me, please don't let this happen to me here....
I was only saved, I think, by the two men coming back, and they showed the guards a pile of papers - our bill of sale, I suppose- and one of them then snapped at us "Right, you slaves! Line up, as you're off, out of here..."
One or two of the guys started to ask about picking up their clothes again, and their stuff from the barracks, but the guards only laughed. "You're fucking slaves! You don't own anything now, and your new owners don't care. You may as well keep your boots on for now, though... Now, do as you're fucking well told, and line up..."
It's odd, isn't it? There were only two of them and we could have rushed them and overpowered him. Nine of us, big, tough, trained fighters, and only two of them? And even if one or two of us did feel the prod thing, seven would still be enough to flatten them, and we'd then have their guns... But somehow I think we were still all acting like soldiers - we were used to obeying orders, however bizarre they at first seemed. So we lost what was probably our last chance of escaping, and I wonder how things might have turned out differently if we'd just been able to put our inhibitions aside - once we'd got a gun or two, we could have perhaps helped everyone to escape, and with a couple of thousand of us spreading out, it surely would have been hard to recapture us all and some of us might have achieved a "free" life again. But there you are - if you don't take your chances when they're presented to you, you deserve to lose out, I suppose.
The guards told us to "about face" and march out of the door of the admin place, and as we went into the sunlight it struck me for the first time that everything really now was different for me. If being naked inside and being inspected and selected as if I was an animal was bad enough, being naked outside was really strange - especially as we could see our fellow POWs still marching around and exercising as normal, just as if nothing had happened. But it all had changed for the nine of us, we realised - there in front of us, on a flat-topped truck, was a cage, and we were commanded to climb up onto the truck and get into it. I was wary of the slave prods by now, but one of the guys started to scream and shout and say that they had no business to take us out of a POW camp as we had rights as prisoners. They must have turned the power on the prod thing up to "full", as he screamed briefly and fell to the ground, and lay there twitching and not moving.
Seeing this, the rest of us reluctantly clambered up onto the truck and went into the cage - it wasn't very big, and we all tried to space ourselves around the edges of it to avoid touching each other - well, I mean, guys don't like having their dicks swinging into the are flesh of other guys, do they? It was a really tight fit, though, and all our precautions came to nothing as the guards picked up our fallen companion and almost threw him into the cage with us - they were holding him under his pits, and he was coming around and kind of half staggering, and then they gave him a big shove and pushed him in - and that caused us all to bang together and half fall over, and I got to know for the first time what it would be like to have to be in such intimate contact with my buddies.
We all hated it as the two men got into the cab and the truck drove off - for one thing the wind was hot against our bare skin, and the sun was strong and I felt sure I was going to get sunburned. But we were like animals in that cage, animals being carried we knew not where, without having any say in matters all.
It wasn't so bad on the open highway, but as we got more in towards the city, there started to be folks about on the sidewalks and getting in and out of their cars in the strip malls, and they all turned to look at us and we felt so ashamed and tried to cover ourselves with our hands - not all that easy when there's so little room to manoeuvre. And a big man like me feels ashamed at having to cover himself like that - for one thing, I need both hands, and I think I look silly. But you can't go exposing yourself to all and sundry, including women and kids, can you?
Fortunately it seemed we didn't need to go right into the centre of town, as we turned off into an industrial estate, and then in through the gates of what looked like a pretty standard sort of distribution depot - there was a huge warehouse shed-like structure with long distance trucks lined up against one side being unloaded directly into it, some sort of offices block, and another shed-like place, which we stopped outside of. The two men, Steve and Jon, got out from the cab, leaving the driver, and went into the office block. We all stood there looking out through the bars of the cage - well, we couldn't do much else, could we - until they emerged some minutes later with several other men. These were all dressed in what we came to know as the uniforms of the company - dark green work shorts, a paler green short-sleeved shirt, and tan boots, and we saw that from their leather belts as well as the usual two-way radios there were a number of other things hanging, including the slave prods. At a command the men got out their prods and came and stood menacingly near the doors of the cage, which was then opened and we were ordered out.
It's hard, actually, moving around and doing things like getting down off a truck when you're naked - you're just not used to the way your dick and balls fly around, and you have to be careful. But soon all nine of us were there, surrounded by the guards with their prods, and we were then led off into the smaller of the two shed-like buildings. Inside it was cooler and dim, and we were led along a path in-between sets of barred cell-like things on both sides. We were herded into one of them, and the door was banged shut and locked.
The two men who'd "bought" us, Steve and Jon, stood there outside and they dismissed the other guards. Then we heard Jon tell the younger guy, Steve, to check out the water supply as "These men are your team, and you're responsible for them. You need to make sure they'll be OK over night." We watched as the young guy reached through the bars and flicked at something on the wall, and we heard the sound of running water. And then both men turned and walked off, ignoring our shouts demanding to know what the fuck was going on. We looked around ourselves then and found that ,apart from the water spigot that the young guy had tried out, our cell was completely featureless. There was straw on the floor - yes, real straw, just as you'd find in a stables or something - but otherwise, that was that: underneath the straw it was bare concrete ,the walls were concrete, and there seemed no possibility of breaking down or forcing the barred door. It was dim and dark as there was only light filtering in from the corridor.
We all stood there, wondering what the fuck was going to happen to us, until we heard voices - men's voices, some laughter, but generally sounding very tired, and we guessed that some of the other cells were being filled with prisoners like us. We stood there, trying to keep a reasonable distance from each other, and all the time listening to try to understand what was happening elsewhere in the place - the men we'd heard being put into the other cells seemed to be getting fed as there was the chink of metal containers and stuff, but no one came and fed us. Eventually, the lights in the passage way went out, and we realised it was time to sleep - but the cell was really small, and it was really difficult to get sorted out and lie down in the darkness without touching your buddies. And unless you've actually tried sleeping on straw, you can't imagine how uncomfortable it is as the straw has sharp ends to it, that stick into your naked skin. Still, at least it meant we were a bit insulated from the hard concrete of the floor.
You couldn't help being in close contact with your buddies as during the night a lot of the guys thrashed around in their sleep as I guess they were worried about what was going to happen to us, and that meant we were thrown together and I couldn't help but feel the stiff dicks of some of them pushed against me. Still, in the dark, you didn't know which of your buddies it was, so it wasn't so bad, I suppose - I mean, when you're sharing a tent out on manoeuvres you know the other guys throw woods as you yourself do, but at least then you've got your uniforms on, or at least your boxers!
I did get to sleep eventually, but was roughly shaken awake by one of the other guys. There, at the gate to our cell were the two men from the day before, and they were shouting at us to get moving. It was only as I scrambled to my feet that I realised I was erect - well, most guys are in the morning, aren't they? And although I hated the other guys seeing me like this, most of them were, too, so it wasn't all that bad. We were told to have a good long drink from the spigot as we wouldn't get any more that morning, and I felt utterly humiliated as it was low down on the wall and I had to kneel there, sucking away at it, knowing that all the other guys could see my ass. Still, I suppose it was the same for them, when it was their turn.
One of the guys very respectfully asked the men outside when we were going to be fed, as we hadn't had any food since the POW camp the day before, and was told to shut up, as "slaves get fed when we think they need it, not when they want it!".
As they unlocked the cage door and told us to file out into the corridor, I wondered what on earth my new life was going to be like.
End Of Part One