DRAY SLAVE
By Pete Brown. petebrownuk @ yahoo.com Read all of Pete's stories at groups.yahoo.com/group/petebrownseroticstories
Part Five
There was a change the next day. Instead of being herded down onto the exercise machines, Steve took us off to one of the big sheds used to house the drays themselves and there in front of us was a huge crate - it was all covered in shipping labels and stuff, and he began to give us orders to use a wrecking bar to open it.... Well, we milled around a bit, and he screamed at us to be fucking careful as the crate had our dray inside it and he didn't want the paint work damaged. Once we got the big crate open, though, we say it wasn't as much a dray as a "build your own dray kit" as there were at least a hundred parts, and bags of bolts and all kinds of stuff like that.
Steve started to give orders to us to unpack it properly, to check that everything was there, and so on, but it's hard when there's eight of you swarming around and it really was utter confusion. Then Sarge shouted at us and got it organised properly - well, he was used to getting all the guys working together, wasn't he, as that's what sergeants do! And it did need organising properly, as whilst there were a lot of small bits, like the parts that made up the driver's seat, there were some really heavy ones, too, like the big metal axles. I reckon that having eight naked guys working without proper supervision would have resulted in some of us getting hurt, so it was just a well that Sarge took control, although Steve seemed a bit pissed off.
It made a nice change, actually, to be working as part of a proper team again, and although there were some problems with the instructions (that seemed to have been written in Spanish or something and then badly translated into English) and we had a couple of "false starts" that meant that we had to undo some bits and start again, we soon had the thing assembled. Mind you, it was hard work because this was a substantial thing as I suppose it needed to be strong enough to take the weight of all the stuff we'd be carrying, and by the time we'd finished we were all sweating. Actually, it did feel a bit odd to be doing "work", rather than exercise, naked and having my dick and balls swinging around - you don't usually think about things like that, do you? Like when you need to help out a buddy pull or lift some heavy bit of the thing, and then you realise that your naked skin is right in contact with his. We were still "soldiers", though, and took a pride in our work and when we were nearly finished Sarge even went and asked Steve if we could use the hose, and some rags, to properly clean and polish the thing so it really looked spick and span.
We were standing around then wondering what was going to happen next, and Steve told us to line up and kneel. He came down the line of us putting muzzles in us! It was fucking awful - these were the "working" muzzles designed so that you can still breathe properly when you're labouring, so there's a big ring thing with grooves in it, and you have to open your mouth as wide as you can so that the ring goes over your top and bottom teeth - you can relax your jaws a bit then to "bite down" into the groove, but it's still awful to have your mouth wedged open like that. What adds to it too is the plate thing that's at right angles to the ring, that forces your tongue down - once the muzzle is in you can't speak at all, and you can't get the fucking thing out as there are metal pieces attached to it that pass around your head and are locked into place. They'd stripped me, inked me, collared me, and generally made me feel like a slave, but this was some kind of new station on the road to Calvary - once you take away a man's ability to communicate, you really are turning him from being a human being into a mere animal. I think we all felt totally humbled as we realised we were silenced like that, and I could see that some of the guys were really wild-eyed as they probed at the muzzles with their tongues and desperately tried to force them out - totally futile, of course.
There was a bit of a change from routine them as Steve ordered us off to the shitter, and even though we didn't want to use it, he insisted we all crouch there and try to drop one - thinking about it, it's amazing how "regular" we'd all got, but I suppose if you're fed exactly the same type of food at the same time every day, your body does adjust as none of us had any problems normally with only crapping in the morning and evening. Still, it was good to have a piss, and Steve led us back outside and ordered us to take up the pushing handles.
This was the first time any of us had actually been "between the shafts" - well, not between shafts, actually, not like when a pony pulls a pony trap. No, this was a big dray, and the pole stretching forward from the front axles had "pushing bars" at right angles to it. Steve lined us up in sequence of our numbers, so, starting at the far left, was one, then Sarge, then the pulling pole, then me, and Jed. And on the pushing bar behind us were five, six, seven and eight. We all stood there, and I know the other guys were doing what I was - feeling the smooth wood of the bar under my hands as I stood there, and beginning to know that I really was now just a draft animal who was going to use his body in an almost mindless job. I mean, I'd been to school, I could read, write, reason, and think, but none of this was necessary: all they wanted me for was my body, and the power of my muscles so that I could be used just like a beast, a dumb animal. The final indignity came when Steve then came along with a chain which he looped through the "D" rings on our collars, before padlocking it to another one of the dray - we couldn't now actually move away from the thing, even if we wanted to: it was as if, at least symbolically, we were now "part of the machine" that had been put together to serve him.
We all stood there, probably all feeling a bit like I did, and I could tell by the way that the other guys were "in motion" - shuffling their feet, tossing their heads, running their hands around the pushing bars - that we were all thinking about what we'd become: some kind of naked animals, rather than men. Then I heard for the first time the "swish" sound of the whip, a sound that was to become all too familiar in time to come. Steve had got up on to the driver's seat and was cracking it around kind of experimentally above our heads - I don't suppose it was to get us used to the noise, more that he felt the need to practice!
We'd watched other drays around the depot as we'd been on our way to and from exercise and stuff like that, and so we knew that the drivers all used a small, standard, set of commands. But it was odd to hear Steve shout "Walk on!" And realise that it was us now under orders, and we slowly and hesitantly bent our backs to get the thing moving, and pulled it across the yard towards the big gates.
As the swung open we all hesitated - we just couldn't help it. I mean, we'd kind of got used to being totally naked except for our collars around the depot, and we weren't the only guys like that there. But as we saw the "outside world", that place from which we'd been excluded for some weeks, it was all different: guys don't parade around the streets naked, do they? Of course the answer is "no", they don't - but slaves are a different matter, and I think that the realisation that we were about to go out there totally naked brought home to us all just how much our lives had changed. It wasn't even as if we could cover ourselves with our hands, as we had to keep them on the pushing bars. So we were totally exposed, and there was absolutely nothing we could do about it.
The depot is on a fairly busy road, and Steve told us to "Whoa!" at the gates, a s we waited for a break in the traffic: it was almost surrealistic to see this "normal" life out there, with guys on motorbikes, cars, and some trucks all whizzing by. We began to realise, of course, that pulling this dray thing was not as easy as you might think - although it's not particularly hard work when it's empty, it's not all that manoeuvrable as the total length, once you've added in the length of the pulling pole and so on, makes it more difficult than you imagine. And even if you're used to sprinting across the road if you're looking for a gap in the traffic and you're by yourself, when there are seven of you, all chained to a big, long dray, it takes a special kind of effort.
Steve kept us at a kind of fast walking pace once we were out onto the road, and it did feel strange, very strange, at first. Although the soles of my feet had hardened during the weeks on the exercise machines, it hadn't prepared me for the way the concrete and tarmac under me now was actually hot; and you probably also don't think about the way that the road surface isn't actually smooth: there's lots of small pebbles and stones and things like that which give you a surprise as you tread down on them until you get used to it. And, of course, some bastards have thrown beer bottles and stuff like that out of their cars, and you have to keep an eye out for shards of broken glass as they can cut through even the toughest feet.
We'd only gone a few hundred yards when Steve called out "Trot!" and we speeded up a bit - well, we were holding up the traffic, I suppose, as the cars and stuff kept coming past us and they seemed to all be vaguely annoyed, the way they would accelerate past and then cut in front of us very tightly. I don't think drivers really ever give enough consideration to other road users! We also had to get used to thinking about stuff like traffic lights, too - in a car, it's easy enough to accelerate a bit, or to start to slow down, as you see the lights ahead change. But you can't do that in a dray - for one thing, you don't have the range of speed available to you, and for another, all eight of you have to do it in a sort of co-ordinated way: it's not up to any one of you, and you have to listen for Steve's shouted orders to "Slow...." or "Trot on...." (the latter accompanied by the swish of the whip in the air above our heads, to indicate we should accelerate). I reckon we'd kind of got the hang of it by the time we'd done the several sets of lights leading towards the city centre, although as we drew closer and closer to the office towers of downtown, I began to get really nervous: I could remember how full the sidewalks and things always were at lunchtime as all the workers streamed out to get their lunches and to shop, and I hated the idea of them all waiting to cross as we went past, and of them therefore seeing my naked body and my cock and balls jogging up and down as we trotted along.
We were better off than some slaves must be, though, having all been in the military: we were used to marching in step, and so we all "naturally" fell into a rhythm, and it does make it easier if you're surrounded by other guys if you are all doing the same things. It wasn't too bad in the city centre when we did get there, though, as it must have been just after the lunch break, and we were "lucky" with the lights, and as Steve kept us trotting at a fair pace, we were soon through it - although, like the rest of my buddies, I was actually covered by a sheen of sweat.
Steve kept giving us orders to go "Next left" and stuff like that as we had to be co-ordinated and we couldn't make those kind of decisions for ourselves, could we? And it wasn't all that hard, as we're pretty much used to obeying orders with our background, and we soon found ourselves leaving the downtown area and going along River Road. That's pretty much of a fast throughway, and the traffic there is a lot more fierce and it goes a lot faster - it's really horrible having those big long-distance trucks sweeping past you, and other stuff cutting in front of you all the time.
River Road's a divided highway for the first mile or so, so we had to keep going and Steve even ordered us to speed up a bit because of the other traffic, so we were really glad when we saw the signs for Piney Hills Road, and Steve indicated we were going to take it. Our joy at being off River Road soon changed, though, as Piney Hills Road really is quite steep - or, rather, it's a series of hills and valleys. If you think about it, running on the level is quite hard work (especially if you're pulling a dray!), but going uphill makes it at least four times as hard. When I'd gone out road running to keep fit in the service, it was always a welcome relief to get to a downhill bit, but in a dray even that's more difficult than you can imagine, as instead of pushing against the pole, you now have to hold on to it tightly to stop the dray running away under its own power! We found out later that some of the difficulties we experienced were because of Steve's inexperience: the dray actually has brakes on the rear wheels and the driver has a big handle up by his seat, and good drivers apply the brake gently as you get to a downhill stretch to make it easier for the slaves. It's a finely judged thing, of course, as you want to use the momentum to help you a bit up the next hill, and I suppose Steve wasn't used to thinking about things like that yet.
Piney Hills Road is actually quite narrow, and a bit bendy, and Steve wanted us to keep up a good pace to avoid annoying other road users. We were all sweating a lot, therefore, but there didn't seem to be anywhere to stop, and I began to doubt that we ever could as we actually needed a really long lay-by to be able to accommodate the entire dray and us. It was quite a relief therefore when we saw these signs saying "Piney Hills Country Club", and Steve gave the order for us to slow, stop in the centre of the highway, and then to pull across the carriageway and turn in to the car park.
It was one of those really swanky places, for the rich! Everything was neat and the lawns were manicured, and Steve kept giving us orders to go right, and left, as we followed the signs saying "deliveries only" until we eventually reached a large, flat area when finally we were told to "Whoa!", and rest. We all kind of slumped then, leaning on the pulling poles as we really were tired having run several miles, I reckon. Sweat was pouring off all of us, but at least we were able to breathe deeply as the fucking muzzle things did at least keep our mouths open. Steve let us recover for a bit and gradually my pounding heart slowed down, and I even began to feel cold as my sweat evaporated. He got down off the driving seat and told us to "Wait", and went across to the club buildings. I reckon he was going for a piss, or something, and I realised that that's what I needed to do, too. I made some kind of inarticulate gurgling sounds at Sarge, pointing at my dick, and he nodded, so I reckoned he was in the same state. Then, as I watched, he just let a stream fly onto the ground as he stood there - not much, and not a big heavy flow like you usually do, but enough to "make yourself comfortable", if you know what I mean. I did the same too, then, seeing Sarge's example, and do did the other guys. Sarge was smart, then, though - he gestured and mumbled, and we moved the dray a few feet away from where we'd all pissed, so there wasn't the wet spots on the ground in front of us: just in time, too, I think, as Steve came out of the buildings, and I reckon he'd have been pretty cross if he'd seen us pissing in such an exclusive place.
Even though we were tired, Steve told us that this was
good place to practice manoeuvring and turning, and he got a few small rocks and stuff, and some odd branches off the bushes at the side, and laid out a patch of the yard. We then had to go forward, and try to reverse the dray in-between the stones and branches, and it was surprisingly hard: well, those of you who have ever towed a trailer behind your car will know the problem, as it's sort of counterintuitive: to make the trailer turn left, you have to push to the right - well, not quite like that, but you know what I mean! Still, after about an hour I reckon we'd got it pretty much sorted, Steve seemed to be really pleased as we were able to reverse the dray to narrower and narrower spaces, and got it right "first time every time".
He actually allowed us to rest for a bit, then - it was a real relief to be able to sit down, even though the tarmac was not all that nice on my bare ass, as Steve went back into the clubhouse. If I'd thought about it I'd have been surprised that they let him in, as it was such an exclusive looking place and Steve was in his uniform of shorts and a polo, with stout boots on. Still, he seemed to be a pretty rich guy, judging from the differences we'd seen between him and Jon, so perhaps his folks were members or something.
Whilst we were sitting there, there was a bit of a commotion, and we head sounds of chattering and laughter, and a group of young guys - very young guys - came past. I reckon they were all between sixteen and eighteen, and they were all slaves as, like us, they were naked. Well, almost naked, as they had some sort of chain "waistcoats" on them - chains over each shoulder were fastened at the front just below their ribs, and at the back there was some sort of big metal plate. They were all totally hairless, though - they must have been shaved - and their young dicks and balls exposed like that made them look younger than they probably were. But what really made them stand out, and what made me feel really sorry for them, was that their inking consisted of broad stripes that ran down their arms and legs (including right down onto their hands, to cover their middle fingers) and it went from ankles to armpits, so that whether they were standing with their arms at their sides or not, they were in some kind of "uniform". That night, when we were talking about it, Sarge reckoned that the metal chains and the plates on their back were to hold golf bags, and that the stripes were Piney Hills Country Club's idea of a "uniform". We all began to wonder then what happened to these kids as they grew up - I mean, none of them looked a lot older than eighteen, and although they could soon re-grow their pubes and stuff and become "normal", what would happen to them next? Who'd want to buy a slave with those big tattooed stripes on them? Sarge just shrugged, but Jed reckoned they'd just be sold off as field hands, as it didn't really matter what slaves looked like who were way out in the country, picking the crops or whatever.
Steve gave us the order to get to our feet, and I then had to "dust" my butt to get the dust off it from the tarmac - it did feel odd to see all eight of us slapping at ourselves and trying to make ourselves look more "respectable" as the dust had turned into kind of weak mud from our sweat. We might as well not have bothered, though, as just as we were leaving, the skies, which had been kind of leaden all afternoon, started to shed the first few drops of rain. It got steadily harder, and it was really unpleasant: I mean, it's bad enough when you get rained on when you've got clothes on and it's only your head and face that gets wet, but when you're totally naked the rain is dreadful: for one thing, it hurts! You don't think about it normally, but big heavy drops of rain hitting your bare skin actually hurt. And for another, it really chills you and makes you cold - well, it's like standing under a cold shower, isn't it? Steve gave the order to speed up and I'm not sure whether that made it better or worse as although I could see that we'd be out in the rain for less time, it also meant that we were having to run into it at a greater speed.
The fucking traffic all snarled up because of the rain once we got close to downtown, and there was not a blind thing we could do about it. We had to stand there, mostly stationary, or crawling forward a few feet at a time, with the rain hitting us and making us cold, and I really felt envious of all the free folk in their cars and trucks as they sat there, the windshield wipers swishing away: you could just tell they had the air conditioners on, keeping them dry and comfortable as they sat there listening to the local radio stations. It made me see again how different we'd become from "men" - we really were more like animals, especially with those muzzles in and with our necks chained to the dray. It seemed a s if the free folk weren't even interested in us, either - I mean, if I'd seen eight well-muscled guys pulling a dray through the streets stark naked, I think I'd have taken a good, close look at them even though I'm not turned on by guys' bodies. But the free folk, neatly cocooned in their private worlds inside their cars, hardly seemed to give us a second glance.
We were all glad to be back in the yard eventually, and after he'd unchained us from the dray (which, with our newly-found skill we'd parked in one of the sheds without any problem, getting it neatly in place first time!), Steve told us we could go off and shower. It felt so good to have the hot water all over us as we were almost shivering by then, and afterwards, when we knelt so that he could feed us, he even gave us one of the "slave treats", popping it into our mouths rather as if it was a communion wafer.
Back in the cage (early, so we had a good long break to look forward to), Sarge muttered and made as much noise as he could, and Steve came back to the bars. Sarge gestured at the muzzle, and Steve nodded, told Sarge to kneel, and then undid the catch at the back with a small special tool and Sarge was able to take the muzzle out.
"Sir, you can't be planning to keep us like this over night.", he began. "It's bad enough being gagged and chained to the dray during the day... But keeping us gagged all the time, sir.... It's treating us like animals!. It's inhuman".
Steve looked at him and said quietly, as we listened intently, "Two, you just don't get it, do you? You are animals - slaves. You have no need to speak normally, and so why shouldn't you be gagged? It saves me the worry that you might have some unseemly outburst like this, and upset the customers. It doesn't interfere with me feeding and watering you as the feeder and water tubes go through the hole in the middle, and so where's the problem?"
"Sir, please don't treat us like this. We are men, just like you, sir, and we like to talk to each other at night...."
Steve seemed to get cross then, and snapped "You are NOT men, two. You are slaves. And I have decided that my slaves are going to be silent, and so for a few days at least I'm going to keep you gagged - I may decide that you're all calm enough at some point to be allowed to go ungagged, but that's my decision. However it does occur to me that you were good today in supervising the other slaves to assemble the dray, and it was useful to be able to speak. So although I'm going to keep the other slaves muzzled, you may leave yours off so that you can continue in that role."
Sarge just stood there for a moment, and then calmly and quietly, in a show of defiance, opened his mouth and put the muzzle back in, turning his head to indicate that Steve should lock it in place once more.
Steve went to pick up the waterer as we hadn't been watered yet, and as he did so some of the other guys slapped Sarge on the back and muttered at him encouragingly - well, I guess it was good to have him show this solidarity with us, as I'm not sure that I could have done that, and once the muzzle was out of my mouth I'd have wanted to keep it that way. But perhaps that's what distinguishes "leaders" like Sarge from us ordinary grunts.
Steve had evidently seen all this, though, as when we were kneeling so he could put the spout of the waterer in through the muzzles, he deliberately left Sarge out. When he'd finished, he come back and stood in front of Sarge, then got some sort of thin leather leash out of his pocket, wrapped it around Sarge's neck, and pulled hard on it so that Sarge's head was jammed between the bars of the cage. Steve tied it around the bars so that Sarge was held there, unable to move, and looked down at him.
"So, two, you want to keep your muzzle in, do you?", he almost sneered. We all stood there watching, almost in horror, as Steve then unzipped his jeans and got his dick out. "Yes, two", he went on. "The muzzle makes this really easy....."
He pointed his dick into Sarge's mouth, and then, as we watched, we realised he was going to piss! Sarge began to struggle, but it was no use as the leather had him held firmly to the bars. But he started to blow so that Steve's piss splattered out of his mouth.
Steve reached down and simply gripped Sarge's nose, and we realised that he then had to drink down Steve's piss as otherwise he couldn't breathe!
The two men carried on, and we saw a thin stream of piss trickle out of Sarge's mouth as he couldn't swallow fast enough to keep up with Steve, and it went on and on, until finally Steve had finished. He pulled his dick out, then shook it lightly to free the last few drops of piss from his urethra, making it splash over Sarge's face. Then he calmly wiped the end of his dick over Sarge's upper lip, right under Sarge's nose, tucked his dick neatly back into his jeans, undid the leather thong holding Sarge to the bars, and walked out.
We all clustered around Sarge to try to give him some support, but it wasn't easy as none of us could speak with the vile muzzles in, so we had to kind of hug him and pat him encouragingly. And then we all moved around to find a space to sleep, and tried to forget the terrible thing we'd just seen - mind you, having realised how much we were now in Steve's power made it difficult. I mean, I used to be a free man, used to making my own decisions, and now here I was, caged naked with my buddies, not able to speak, and knowing that whenever he wanted to my owner could even piss into my mouth. It didn't help that my cock was rock hard, and I knew that I mustn't touch it in case the CCTV saw it. A lot of the guys must have been having similar thoughts, as there was a lot of shuffling around, as some of them had the theory that if you lay on your belly you could try and rub your dick on the straw and the concrete, and get yourself off that way.
I had tried it, but it just didn't work for me - I need to feel a hand, or a mouth, on my dick if I'm going to cum without fucking.
The next morning, though, Steve had us line up and gave the order for us to jerk each other off as he'd now done several times. It's funny, really, but after that first time when it seemed totally disgusting, it was now becoming almost "normal", and we'd almost got to the point of taking bets on who could shoot the furthest into the corridor - the only thing that was stopping us was that we had nothing to bet with as we were now totally without possessions of any kind. After that, when he'd taken us to the shitters, Steve told us to be especially careful to empty ourselves as we were going out on our first "run" that day and there would be no opportunity for crapping later, except to do it in the gutter, and he thought that that didn't look good, so any of us who had to go like that would also get punished later. And because we were going to be under the hot sun all day, he also had the sun cream that we'd had before, and insisted that we slather ourselves in it - well, I suppose he was concerned that we didn't get burned, but perhaps he just liked to see our bodies gleaming and glistening from the oil: it did make us look a whole lot better, if you can imagine such a thing!
Steve was really pissed off, though, when we got to the dray because when we'd got back the previous night he'd uncoupled us from the tethering chain and had let us go off to get a hot shower as we were so cold from the rain, and the consequence of this was that the dray was all covered in mud still, and had lost its initial "gloss". It was a mistake he never repeated, as in future the last thing we always had to do every night was to clean and polish the dray, no matter how tired and exhausted we were when we got back.
It didn't take all eight of us that long to get the thing looking good, but by the time we'd done it we were at the back of the line of drays waiting to be loaded up with goods from the warehouse, and you could tell that Steve was frustrated as he was pacing up and down, muttering and cursing under his breath. He kept glaring at us, but it was hardly our fault, was it? Still, we did have some time to spare, and he finally came over and addressed us all.
"I've decided it's not necessary to keep you all muzzled", he told us. "We'll set off today without them, except for two, who wanted to be muzzled as we saw last night. I'll take the muzzles with me, though, and if there's any sign of you chattering or talking amongst yourselves, they'll be straight back in. Is that clear?"
Well we could hardly say "Sir, yes, sir", could we, but we did our best. And he took the hated things out, except for Sarge, who just stood there looking defiantly at him.
He then told us that he didn't intend to tether us to the dray, either, but that we were expressly forbidden to move away from the pushing poles without his permission. "Again, this is an experiment", he told us. "If any of you disobey, you'll all be permanently tied to it. As it is, I'll let some of you help with the deliveries, carrying the parcels and stuff into the customers' houses - but again, I warn you: I expect all of you to be on your very best behaviour at all times. I won't hesitate to cane any of you who are impolite in any way whatsoever."
Mind you, he rather pointedly tethered Sarge to the dray, and it was so fucking unfair. I mean, Sarge was our natural leader, and was probably at least a concerned as Steve was to make sure we all did the right thing, as he didn't want "his men" punished or anything. I expect it was some sort of "power" thing, though - an organisation can't have two leaders, can it? And so I suppose Steve was trying to make it perfectly clear that he was in charge, and that Sarge was really a slave, like the rest of us.
We were loaded up then, and as we set out towards the gates, we realised how much harder it was to pull the loaded dray than an empty one. Funnily enough, after our experience the day before it didn't seem nearly so bad to be pulling the thing totally naked - it's surprising how quickly you adapt, isn't it, to things like that? And it turned out that Steve's exercises, and the session we'd had the previous day, meant that we were a pretty good team: because we stopped from time to time to make deliveries, we had a chance to recover so our bodies could cope with the work; and when we called at companies on industrial estates, we were able to manoeuvre the dray into their loading bays as if we'd been doing it for years! I know it sounds funny to say so, but we were actually taking a pride in our work.
We even got a break at lunchtime - there was a sort of cheap restaurant at which several of our drays seemed to congregate, and Steve pulled us in and told us we could go and join the other slaves under the shade of the trees whilst he had his lunch. It was really good to get out of the sun and to actually sit down, and interesting to chat to some of the other slaves as we didn't get much of a chance to do that at the depot. Poor Sarge, though, couldn't join us as he was tethered to the dray, and I did go back over to try to talk to him, but it wasn't possible, really, because of his muzzle, and he waved me away.
When Steve came out of the restaurant he went over to the dray, and he seemed be saying something to Sarge, who, naturally enough, had sat down on the pulling pole to take the weight off his feet. We could see Steve shouting, and then the next minute he'd taken the carriage whip and was really laying into Sarge with it! I went to rush over to stop him, but the slaves from another team grabbed me and held me back. "Don't interfere when a master is doing something like that", one of them said, "Unless you want to get whipped too! That slave must have done something to really piss off the master, and, as you'd expect, he's being punished for it. So don't interfere, and let them get on with it. You'll soon get to learn that when a master has vented his anger on one slave that's usually enough, and it goes easier on the rest of you then that day."
When Steve called for us to go over, though, we could see that he'd really laid into Sarge, as Sarge's back and butt were really striped from the whip, and he had that hurt, but defiant, look in his eyes so we knew that he must be in pain, but was determined not to show it. "Let that be a lesson to all of you", Steve told us. "Two here sat down without permission - I left him standing against the pulling pole, ad that's the way I expect to see a slave when I get back. And, to make it worse, he didn't stand even when I approached: a slave never sits in the presence of a free man. I want all of you to take a look at two's back and butt tonight as a lesson of what will happen to you if you do not behave properly."
I reckon we did learn a lesson, actually, as later that day there was a big hold up at some place or other as we delivered something and had to wait for it to be unpacked as we needed to ship the "old" one back in the same crate. None of us dared to sit down, even though our legs were aching, and Steve seemed pleased when he came back out at last.
That night Sarge lay there in our cage, on his belly as his back was so painful, and we did our best for him to try to make him comfortable. But there's not a lot you can do, is there, when you're totally naked and locked in with no access at all to any kind of medicine, or even to water? I think it showed us again just how powerless we were, and how totally reliant we were on Steve to even live.
End Of Part Five