My master is teaching me how to read. I am sitting in the cell with the tape recorder on my knees and the book in my hands. I can hear the cheerful voice of the woman on the tape in my head as I read the page aloud.
"Though the evil Queen was gone forever, the princess was still locked in her spell..."
I know the dark marks on the page are letters and that the letters form the words that I am saying, but my voice is only a mimic of the voice on the tape.
"So beautiful was she, even in death..." My voice falters. I am not reading. I don't understand the marks. All I have done is memorize the story from the tape. The chain that trails from the collar around my neck stirs with a soft chink as I raise my head. Silent, I sit and gaze at the four white walls of my cell.
I am too stupid to learn how to read. But my master knows that I am stupid. I'm okay. He won't punish me for being stupid.
On all fours I crawl around the floor of my cell. The chain is not long enough for me to stand. I clutch the book and the tape recorder very closely. These things are precious. They are something to do while I wait for my master to come. I have been trying very hard to learn to read, for long hours over days. My master has had to replace the batteries in the gaily-coloured tape recorder twice now. I love the tape recorder, because it will tell me the story of Snow White whenever I want it to, whenever I want to hear a human voice. I love the book because it has pictures.
There are many things I love in my cell. There is the light bulb that hangs from the ceiling, which I love almost most of all. When my master punishes me by leaving me in the dark I forget whether I am hanging upside down or not, whether I am tied or allowed to move around, whether I am in my cell or in the wide cool basement.
When he turns on the light again I am bruised from battering against the walls, from trying to get out of the harness that I think holds me upside down, from trying to find out where I am. There are dark marks all down my long white body and I find crusts of blood dried on my face. My master doesn't like to find me like that, so he very rarely turns off my light.
Now it is after work and my master is coming. I can hear him outside of my cell, walking around. I am pressed up against the wall, wanting him. I want him to come in. I want him to come in and touch me. Maybe he will want to hurt me, but that is not important. I want him to come in so that I can hear his voice and see him move. I love my master. I need him.
Once, but I don't know how long ago that was, I used the word love for other things than light bulbs and my master. I used the word for things that made me feel happy, instead of things that take away the sick feeling. That was in the days before I found out that I was a slave, in the days when I used to run outside whenever I wanted to, and I went to school. I used to love strawberry ice cream. I remember strawberry ice cream. It was pink, the same colour as a welt when it begins to fade.
My master comes in and the breath leaves me in a rush. He is so big and so strong and so bright. He spreads me flat across the floor. Today he is only horny. He is not playful. I lie with my legs spread, grateful to feel the weight of his body pressing my bones against the floor. He fucks me, quickly and without passion. When my body opens for his cock, I feel nothing. It opens easily. His cock is so much smaller than his fist. I want to feel his weight pressing me down. I smell him. I try, almost desperately to capture his eyes. Today he is not amused. He doesn't let me see his eyes. He squints them shut and thrusts hard.
Even when he is finished and I kneel to lick his cock clean he doesn't let me see his eyes. He keeps them turned up and away. I am not being punished. It is just that I disgust him. I keep on trying, staring up at him hungrily until the last second when he seals me into my cell again.
No eye contact. I huddle around my bony knees. No food. But I have the book still, and the tape recorder. Later when I am not so hungry, when the dizziness has worn off I will read the book again.
My master is dressing me for a party. I am standing beside him, black leather tight around my ribs and body while he zippers me up. I am shorter than my master. My head comes to his shoulder. But I have grown since I became a slave and the leather corset is too tight. He curses while he struggles with the zippers.
"Fuckin' stand up straight, slave!"
I have trouble standing sometimes. I am a good slave. I will not annoy him. I keep on my feet. It is hard to breath as he does the zipper up.
After the corset he puts me into a belt, which cuts up tightly into my cleft, and he also puts me into manacles.
"Now, don't you look pretty!" My master grins and slaps me on the ass when I am dressed.
I know that I am ugly, probably the most ugly slave in the world. I smile. "Fuck me. Hurt me. Let me suck your cock." I say. He let me look at his eyes! He looked at me! I go on smiling until he turns around to lead me downstairs, to the basement and to the party.
There are three things that he sometimes does that are too terrible to have words. I am waiting in the basement, hands pulled high above my head, a spreader bar separating my ankles. I am waiting for the party. I am being careful to not think about the three terrible things. I am looking around the basement. It's such a big room. It's much, much bigger than the cell where I live.
The door is opened. The party guests are coming in from the stairs. Men. Strange men. Staring men. Oh, it is so good to be able to look and see their eyes! And I feel so sick with anticipation of what these staring guests may do. I shut my own eyes up tight. I clench them. The men form a ring around me.
"Jesus, Joey." One of the men complains. "You've found a kid with real bad teeth. I don't know if I want a mouth that looks that rotten sucking my prick!"
They don't like me.
"Fuck me. Hurt me. Let me suck your cock." I say.
The whip I know. I don't like it, but I know it and I know that jumping when it scratches me is best. It makes them look at me when my body jerks. I know the cocks in my mouth. They slide easily down my throat. Cocks are effortless. All I have to do is remember if they want me to swallow or to dribble the cum out from between my lips. And I know the clips. I hate the clips.
Which would I rather? The clips or my cell? My cell silent without my master until my head is buzzing? Or the clips that pinch and leave little bloody dots where their tiny teeth close? It's not the teeth. It's after. I scream. I can't answer my question. My head expands as the burning explosions begin, the first one in my nipple, later ones on my lips, my thighs and my genitals. I scream. I scream. The chains that hold me are rattling frenziedly. I scream.
My master puts the ball gag in my mouth. My body is damp with sweat. Another man is helping him. This man is looking at me, smiling, his forehead puckering. He is looking me in the eyes. I stare up into his eyes drunkenly. Maybe if I can look into my masters' eyes, I can draw some of their strength into me.
My cleft is slick and greasy. It is full of lubricants. The lubricants burn. I twitch, a series of shivers. Pain. I empty my head.
"Oh, she'll never find me here, said Snow White. And if you let me stay..."
But I can't get back to Snow White. My master is holding my legs wide open so that the other men can fuck me. "Do you want to eat shit, Slave?" He's talking to me.
I nod my head.
My tongue is licking the asshole of a man who kneels in front of me. I am licking him above his balls. I am licking the hole and the man is sighing in pleasure. I use my tongue urgently. My burned lips are swollen. The man is happy. He is horny, not playful. He doesn't shit in my mouth.
My party is over. I am lying on the basement floor. I am very, very tired. It is time to go back in my cell now. It is time but my master is still talking to one of the guests, standing above me.
I piss as I lie on the floor. I am too tired and too bruised to hold my urine and the warm piss runs down below my thigh towards the floor drain.
"Just for awhile, for a few days." says the fat man who looked me in the eyes so often.
"I don't know, man. It's too fuckin' dangerous." says my master.
"It's only for awhile. And I swear I'll take real good care of your slave."
I realise that my master is going to loan me to the strange guest. Fear. I hug the floor and begin to shiver.
"Fuck, you gotta promise you'll remember about food and water and shit like that." My master exclaims. "I don't want anything happening like those girls in Belgium. We could all hang."
"I promise." says the stranger. "I promise. You get to use my motorcycle for a month and I get to use your slave."
I know I have been in other places than my master's house. I belonged to someone else before I belonged to my master. And once when I was very young I went outside frequently, even alone. But that is so long ago I don't really remember it. This is going to be a new place, a strange place, an unfamiliar place. I struggle.
"Quit it!" My new master is exasperated. He has a deep voice. He is leading me towards the door, into the dark. I tremble and pull. I try to fall down. My new master won't let me. He is making me walk towards a van.
Oh God! I am outside. How cold and strong smelling it is! I buckle. No. My new master pulls me to my feet. I am afraid. I can't do this!
But I must. I can obey my master. My master wants me to walk. I walk. I concentrate on obeying my master. I make it through the patch of dark cool air and into the back of the vehicle.
The man murmurs as he moves over me. The blindfold that he puts over my eyes is a familiar soft tightness around my head. I am cushioned into perfect darkness. "You're okay, see? I'm not going to kill you. It's okay. Your master wouldn't loan you to a guy that would kill you. It's okay. I'll bring you back."
My new cell. Tired. Very soft. Sleeping. I can't sleep. Light has seeped into the cell. He has turned on a light that is too bright. The light is brighter than anything. I can't sleep.
I open my eyes.
Ahhhhh! It is too yellow. I push both my fists into my eyes. This light is sun! It's been so long since I saw sun. I take my fists away and I look about.
Where is my new master?
I see a funny cell. There is a bed in the cell and a window. The window is scaldingly yellow with pure light. There is a door. The door is open. The cell is too big and the door is open.
The first time I get up I fall down. I crawl over to the open door.
Light. Light. Light. The light leads me out and down. Where is the master? There is something else here. There are open doors. I slide on one knee on the steps outside and find a concrete path. There is grass between the square stone of the path, electric green. Sunlight makes the grass so bright that my eyes are dazzled. I touch it with my fingertips. Green.
When my master sees that I have gone outside I will be punished. When my master comes down... But where is my master? I stand up. My legs float me towards a street where cars are parked and a lawnmower is droning.
Outside: Light, air, people. Cars, sounds, a tree. The tree almost makes me scream. The tree is like a master. Massive, silent, tall, without eyes and richly beautiful. I start to run.
"Now quick, child -run, run away. Hide in the woods! Anywhere! said the huntsman to Snow White."
The world doesn't have four walls. I look at every person uneasily to see if he is my master. Like my master, they refuse to let me look at their eyes. I run reeling until I fall down. Then I sit where I fall until someone comes to stare at me or shout at me. When they shout I get up and I go on.
Buildings are made out of brick. Brick is red. Trees are dazzling. Cars scream! I huddle on the sidewalk. They scream as they rush past me. Once I went outside whenever I wanted to. A wind whirls around me. Once I went out into this hissing, roaring chaos whenever I wanted to.
I'm afraid.
I learn how to cross streets. Dimly, I remember being told how to cross streets. "Red means stop and green means go." The cars are not red or green, but when there is a big space between them and I run my hardest, I can get through and the cars don't kill me.
My eyes hurt. Grass is not edible. I want strawberry ice cream. I don't remember where I came from. I want to go back where I came from. I rest panting, curled tight. People walk right past me! They come so close they could touch me! I curl tighter.
A cell is silent. Rarely, pipes gurgle distantly within the walls. The world is full of the sound of pipes and of voices. I keep hearing little pieces of voices but they are not talking to me. For a long time I huddle on a bench. Big buses groan to a stop in front of the bench and go on. Sometimes someone sits gingerly on the other end of the bench as far as possible from me. When a bus comes they go. It is too bright for me to think.
When it is dark I am moving again. My legs are as fragile as threads. When I look back I see the imprint of my own bare toes imprinted in red on the concrete. I smile a thin mechanical smile at everyone who passes. I am trying to find someone. That much I can figure out. It is easier to think as it gets darker but I am so, so tired.
An old habit: Sometimes I find it comforting, so I do it now. I spit up bile from my stomach, into my mouth and then I swallow it down again, over and over. Bile up, swish, between my teeth, stinging, down again, swallow. The rhythm is a constant where sudden vehicles create oppressive uncontrollable noise.
Dark now. I believe I'll curl up tightly and sleep. Hopefully I will never wake up again. This corner here, beside a step seems like a good place to sleep. Somebody, Master, please protect me.
A red light. Oh. A car. A big man in a uniform. A master. A policeman. The two images blend. Policeman: "I'm gonna arrest you! You're a bad guy!" Master. "Come here, Bad Slave! You ran."
"Okay kid, are you drunk or stoned?"
Once I was a bad child before I was a slave, so I recognize policemen. Now I scream thinly, too exhausted to make much noise as they push me into the back of the police car. It is very familiar. It is a cell, but a kind of a torture cell because it rushes swiftly through lights and places, images too fast and dazzling for me to process. They take me to prison. This is a story that I am familiar with.
I put my hands up to protect myself. I come meekly. "Don't hurt me, please. I didn't mean to be bad."
"What's your name, for Pete's sake? Just tell us your name!"
Uniforms. There are lots of uniforms. In a minute the uniforms will get ripped open. Cocks will jut from the blue trousers.
"Fuck me. Hurt me. Let me suck your cock." I say.
They handle me, with disgust with the tips of their fingers. I am so bad that they don't want to touch me. Every time I go down on my knees they back away from me. I am gasping exhausted. They refuse to touch me.
"Will you stop that! We are not going to fuck you!" When the policeman roars at me, I shrink back quivering.
"Please put me in a cell. Please lock me up in a cell. I'm afraid."
They don't take me to a silent, safe cell. They take me in the back of the police car again to a place where I can be tortured. I keep my eyes clenched in the white hallway. I keep my eyes clenched until there is a curtain close around us and it dims down the light. When I look again it is time to play doctor. There are blue police uniforms around me and there are white uniforms. I know this game.
Needles. Careful repeated needles. A catheter. Stimulants so I can't pass out. Metal tools pushed into crevices by men that shake with suppressed laughter. Yes, I know this game.
I scream again. The high metal couch collapses in sudden blast of sound, the metal pinging. My arms windmill as I fling myself about seeking a corner to shield my body in. The doctors curse.
"I'll be good! I'll be good!" I scream. I try to put my face down below my belly to protect them both. I can't stand any more. I have gotten too tired. I don't stop them when they pull back my shirt and stick the needles into me. They don't push the needle into my eyelids or nipples or nose or lips but into the inside of my arm. There are no tiny scissors yet, no clamps.
"We are not going to hurt you." It's like a chant, repeated impatiently. I crouch below this voice.
"We can't tranquillize the kid until we get the blood results back!" One of the doctors is arguing with one of the policemen.
"Fuck me." I whisper. "Hurt me. Let me suck your cock."
I am curled in a ball on the corner of the hospital floor. My face is between my knees, my arms wrapped around myself. When I tried to take my clothing off they would not let me. I am too tired to think of anything else to do. My eyes are burning so I keep them closed.
Footsteps. "Is that your cousin?"
"Yes." A voice that I've heard before. I raise my head.
My master, my new master, the fat man is standing between the two policemen. The heavy jowls of his face are pale. I can see that he is holding his mouth tight and he is not happy. I am good at reading masters' faces. When I see him, I moan. I creep forward slowly on hands and knees. I crawl to my master's feet. He doesn't kick me away when I wrap my arms around his ankles. He doesn't push me off when I cling to him.
"This kid was supposed to be on medication?"
My master is speaking very carefully. "Yes. For schizophrenia. I've been very worried." He says.
"Take me home. Please. Put me in a cell. Please make me safe." I say.
"Shhh." says my master. "Don't say that." He looks down at me, searching my face. He meets my eyes. "Shut up. Don't say things like that here."
"Please don't let them push needles into me."
The policemen shake their heads. "We've been hearing some really gross delusions."
My master takes me away. When they try to make me stand I slip down again. My new master swings me up into his arms. I am skinny and spindly. He can carry me like this and I smell his sweat. I bury my nose in his thick neck and keep my eyes closed. "Jesus." he murmurs. "Jesus." I clench my eyes tighter and try to shut out his voice, everything.
There is no pain. There is nothing forcing the crevices of my body open. There is dark, complete and calming. There is cloth, firmly winding me, wrapping me cocooned. Yet if I try, I can move. I am somewhere safe and still and not quite silent. Distantly there is the sound of breathing. The sound is deep, throaty and gurgling. When he sleeps, my master snores.
My master is teaching me to read. We sit in my cell. I sit at his feet. He sits on the bed and the book is on his knees. His hand is resting lightly on my head. The heavy curtains are drawn back from the window just enough that we can see the letters he has printed on the page.
"What's this word?" He asks in his husky voice.
"Slave."
"Okay, now this word is like slave, see? It looks the same but one letter is missing. What letter is missing?"
"The L." I say softly. "Ssss... ave."
"That's right. Say it shorter now."
"Sssave. Save."
The room is quiet with only our two voices. On the table near us is an empty bowl. My bowl. My eyes stray over to it. The pink residue of ice cream is all that is left from a few minutes ago, before we started the reading lesson.
He sees the flicker of my eyes. "What more? In a minute. After you get the rest of this list. Next word."
Obediently I turn my eyes to the page again. "B." I say. "R. ..ave."
"Sound it out."
"Burr..ave?"
"Right! Brave. The brave slave. You smart cookie!" His hand scruffs my hair eagerly. I tilt it back and look up. He smiles down. Two eyes meet mine, warm and brown and approving. I lock his eyes. I never tire of holding them, of seeing in them affirmation that I exist, that I am a good slave.
He lets me hold his eyes. His thumb comes up and gently traces over my lips. "You cost me a nearly brand new motorcycle." He breathes. "Did you know that?"
I begin to cringe inside, automatically. A motorcycle? Me, to have cost him so much? But he sees the minute widening of my eyes.
"Yeah, a motorcycle." He says. "But I can buy a new motorcycle anywhere, soon as I save the money up. A sweet thing like you is worth ten times the price."
I open my mouth and take his thumb inside. "Fuck me. Hurt me. Let me suck your cock." I say.
"Uh-uh." He says gently. He takes his thumb away. "Later. First we finish teaching you to read."