This story contains graphic but completely fictional depictions of sex among men and men, and men and underage boys. If this offends you, if it is illegal for you to read or download this, or if you are under 18, please go away.
Seaward Plantation
Chapter six
He didn't know how he came to be lying on his back in a meadow of sweet grass and wild flowers, but he was. Nor how he knew that he was, since all he could see with his open eyes was light. But he could hear birds and insects, and feel the soft grass with his fingers. He was most puzzled by the black panther lying next to him--and how did he know it was black if he couldn't see it? It was stretched alongside of him with its tail across his thigh. Its wet, thick muzzle pushed into his neck and ear. It seemed to be purring. The tail lashed softly against his thigh, so he grabbed it with his hand. The panther purred louder and began to lick his ear. The tail became less furry, more skinlike, as did the big cat's muzzle. The purring turned to words.
"Master Mark, wake up! Ooooo, that's nice, but we can't, we don't have time, Papa will be waiting with the boat-- oooo! Oh, master, that feels good, but wake up!"
Mark Appleby's sight returned, as the world darkened to the early morning light of his own bedroom. The panther had turned into Troy, his twenty year old black slave, stretched out full length beside him. The nuzzling at the neck and nibbling at the ear were real. The tail..... the tail was Troy's swollen penis, laid across the white man's thigh, which he had grasped with his hand and was slowly pumping and kneading.
"Master, please, not.... ooooo, yes!... but we really need to....aaaaa!" Troy was torn between duty and pleasure. He knew he should stop, but each pump of his master's hand, each time the white hand bent the head of the full black snake downward a bit, a wave of pleasure flowed over him, making him clench his ass muscles and push his penis forward into his master's hand. Appleby likewise realized that they needed to begin the day since they were sailing into Charleston, but he felt mischievous and enjoyed the pleasure he was giving his slave.
Troy quickly became lost in the rhythm of joy, aware that at any rate it would soon be over. The white man began pumping harder as Troy stopped talking and began breathing heavily. He put his head of crinkly black hair on his master's shoulder and laid a dark chocolate brown arm across the white tanned chest. His legged moved on top of his master's and he began rutting, pushing his groin back and forth in time to the pumping. It did not take long. His whole body clenched, spasming, shooting thick lines of white semen onto his master and across his master to the sheets of the bed. Gasping for breath, he clutched his master's chest tightly. As his breathing slowed, he reached for the white man's full penis, but Appleby decided to be responsible in that moment, having taken enough pleasure from giving pleasure to his slave.
"No, you are right, we have to be up!" he said, kissing Troy quickly and springing from bed. Groaning and laughing, Troy jumped up as well. The two men cleaned themselves and each other from the basin of water near the bed, and Troy watched his master shave, rubbing his own chin in hopes that a need had arisen to remove some kinky hairs from his own face--but alas, it had not! Dressing quickly, for they feared they would be late for the tide, they stopped by the pantry on the way out, stuffing their pockets with bread for a breakfast on the way. Appleby had business in the city of Charleston, a smudge on the horizon, and so he had dressed more formally, wearing a hat, tie and coat for the first time since coming to Seaward.
Priam, Troy's fifty year old father, did not complain when the two men came running down the stone steps to the pier on the west side of the island, panting from their hurry. The two black men were expert sailors in the small craft, the Hesperus, and guided it out into the open sea where a favorable wind caught its two sails. Munching bread and talking companionably, Troy and Appleby breathed in the fresh sea air. Priam was more silent, lost in his own thoughts, and manned the rudder of the sturdy boat. A brisk wind pushed the boat speedily toward the shore. The wooden homes, tall steeples, train station, government buildings and warehouses of the city became clearly visible.
With great skill, Priam and Troy guided their boat to its berth on a long pier at the harbor, securing it tightly to the steel rings bolted into the boards of the uprights. Appleby had a plan for his day in the city, the first part of which required his slaves to follow him. He set the pace into the heart of the town, consulting a hand-drawn map he had made from an atlas he found in his study, while the black men followed looking in wonder at the city that was still strange to them despite the fact that they visited it about once a week. It was strange for its congestion, for being on the mainland, for having so many white people--and they also found the other blacks different. People of their color here seemed much more servile, even cringing, especially in public. Knowing the need to adapt, they avoided eye contact with the white people they saw, stepping off the board sidewalks and into the muddy street when necessary to let them pass.
Appleby stopped at a long row of shops, checking off each destination from his list as they went. At an apothecary's shop he ordered medical supplies and a few basic instruments, patent medicines, bandages, and rare dried herbs. At a dry goods store, he asked for bolts of cloth, spools of thread, needles, scissors, pins. Stopping at the telegraph office, he sent a number of telegrams. Troy and Priam exchanged guarded looks of surprise when he stopped at a gun shop and ordered half a dozen double-barreled shotguns, powder, flint, wadding, shot, and other necessaries. At a granary office he ordered large waterproof sacks of dried wheat, rice, and oats. At a store serving the fishing boats down by the harbor, he ordered netting and floats. In each place of business, he indicated his servants who would return to collect the goods in another hour or two. His last stop with Troy and Priam was at a stable, to rent a simple but spacious cart and a mule to pull it, to be ready in half an hour's time.
Walking out into one of the public squares near the stable, Appleby stopped by the window of an establishment offering meat pies, bread, and beer for sale, with tables inside for eating. "Does that look good to you?" he asked Troy and Priam, who peered around his shoulder.
"Yes, Master Mark," each replied.
"Let's go eat," said Appleby, and began to open the door, when Priam whispered urgently at him, "Master! we cannot go in there with you!" Taken aback, having become completely used to the easy life he lived with the slaves of Seaward, Appleby thought for a moment.
"Alright, I will buy some food and drink and bring it out here, we can sit in the park here in the middle of the square."
Troy and Priam exchanged pained glances, and Troy whispered in a mixture of sorrow and urgency, "No, Master Mark, we can't do that, either. We can't be seen eating with you."
Appleby was at a loss, and a wave of disappointment washed over him. "The boat?" he asked.
"No, master," said Priam, now smiling gently as if explaining how things were to a child, "not there either. We cannot be seen eating together."
Appleby's disappointment changed to anger, and then to determination. "Wait here," he said, plunging into the shop, leaving his worried slaves on the board sidewalk. He came out with two baskets, one containing food for two, one with a solitary meal. Handing the larger basket to Priam he said, "This is for the two of you. Probably best to eat it at the boat." Priam nodded agreement, looking with interest at his master. It was agreed that the black men should collect the morning's orders in the mule cart and take the goods to the boat. They also had some equipment and stores for Seaward that they themselves needed to pick up, or that the women had requested, so they headed off, nodding courteously to their master. Looking at them go, Appleby heaved a sigh, then crossed to the park to eat his lonely lunch on a bench.
His good spirits somewhat restored by the meal, Appleby's first stop of the afternoon was at the lawyer's, Hector Smith. Smith expressed a pleased surprise to see him, but Appleby explained that as he had to be in town on business anyway, he decided to go ahead and sign the papers that Smith had previously planned to bring over to Seaward later in the week.
"You are quite determined, then, Appleby?" Smith inquired. "As your attorney, I must urge caution...although you are surely rich enough to buy replacements later on if you see that this was in error."
"Now, Smith," said Appleby, drawing himself up to deliver a little speech he had composed for the occasion, "as I told you in my letter two weeks ago, Professor Nutbottom of Yale has proven his new economic theory that a wage incentive for the stimulation of industrial and agricultural--"
Smith raised his hand, smiling indulgently. "Enough, my friend, you will have your new-fangled Northern ways I suppose. I make no further objection. Here are the papers," he said, pulling them from a safe. Calling in his clerk to witness, he notarized them and made Appleby sign three copies, handing two copies to him and putting another back into his safe.
"This is all now perfectly legal and complete, is it?"
"Yes, my friend, it is. You know what to do with one of those copies."
"I do, and I thank you. Oh..." Appleby said, picking up his hat and making ready to leave, "this is strictly confidential, is it not? I don't want to be embarrassed if my, um, economic theories fail."
"Strictly legal, strictly confidential. Thank you, so nice to see you again. You must sail back over for dinner some time," said Smith, with genuine affection for his law school classmate.
Stepping into the street, Appleby could barely suppress a guffaw. Professor Nutbottom, indeed--of course, there was no such person. Just part of a necessary ruse. But then Appleby was momentarily startled. Did he see Priam ducking behind a building at the end of the block? No doubt he was mistaken, there were so many African men in Charleston. Appleby walked around for a bit, having two hours free until the appointed time to meet his men at the boat. Up and down he walked, admiring spacious white wooden houses with cast iron railings around two story verandahs.
After about half an hour, he turned down a street that appeared to house several businesses. Walking by a stone building with an open window he was stopped abruptly by the sound of a whip... a whip meeting flesh. A voice cried out in pain, and it had the throaty resonance of an African voice. "STAND against that wall when I tell ye, ye damned blackamoor!" another voice, white, bellowed in a roar. Appleby looked at the bars on the windows set in the stone wall, at the sign "Negroes for sale" over the door, and realized with revulsion that this was a place where slaves were bought and sold.... and evidently mistreated. A sense of horror warred with anger in his mind. He stumbled away quickly, keeping his eye on the barred window, and nearly tripped over the front stoop of the next business down the way. Recovering himself, he looked straight up the steps into the eyes of the man who stood there.
"Yas, yas, a disgraceful business, old Levitt over there..... scares the customers and damages the goods, dontcha know." There stood a middle aged man with pasty skin, a fat, doughy face pushing out a bulbous red nose, and greasy hair coming out from under a greasier, ancient hat. He was quite portly, and his clothes neither the cleanest nor the newest.
"McGillicuddy, Aloysius McGillicuddy is the name, yas, yas," he said, lunging at Appleby with a grubby hand held out for a shake. Appleby took it, as much to steady himself from his near fall as out of sociability. It was.... well, it was sticky.
"Mark Appleby, at your service, sir," came the polite reply.
"Have you an establishment here in town or in the country, if I may so inquire?" said McGillicuddy in a wheezy, nasal voice.
"I own Seaward Plantation, out..." Appleby gestured toward the port, "out there."
"Ah, a land owner! A plantation! No doubt always in need of servants. Come sir, let me invite you in for a drink and perhaps to inspect my stock." McGillicuddy heaved a stout leg down a step and cupped a fat hand around Appleby's shoulder, guiding him toward the door. It was then that Appleby saw the sign above this door: A. McGillicuddy and Co., Negroes Sold and Bought.
"I... I have no need for more servants, sir," said Appleby, feeling a sudden distaste for the whole matter.
"Of course, yas, yas, but it can't hurt to look, can it? We never know in life," said McGillicuddy, hooking a grubby finger in his vest and lifting a grubbier finger into the air, "what life will bring. Suppose you return to your estates and find the pox has taken off half your servants? What then, yas? No obligation, sir, I assure you, come in and examine the stock, no need to buy today at all, no, no, just looking, eh? To be aware of what may be had, and at what price?"
Naturally courteous, Appleby did not wish to be rude. And he had more than an hour before needing to meet Priam and Troy. And.... and to tell the truth, he was curious. A little... interested. Perhaps.... drawn. He had no experience of slave markets in Boston. He had had nothing but the most wonderful (and indeed, life-changing) experiences of the slaves of Seaward. Could it hurt? What could it hurt!
"I... I suppose so, but for just a short while. Really, sir, I have no need of servants at the moment and I have... I have other appointments this afternoon." He did not add, of course, that his only appointment was with two of his own slaves, one of whom he was physically intimate with.
"Yas, yas, all understood quite well," said McGillicuddy, leading Appleby into a dingy hallway. "Now, I must tell you, all our stock are in the best physical condition, well fed, examined by the finest veterinarian in town, Doctor Ladwig. All bathe fresh first thing every morning so as to purge all offensive odors, yas, yas. And we have only just opened for business, at one o'clock, sir, so you see our stock at its freshest and most, uh, untried."
They passed locked doors with barred windows, through which Appleby could make out stark rooms lined with benches, black people inside milling around listlessly or sitting on the benches. Males and females appeared to be separated in different rooms. Soft voices could be heard, nothing more. He could not imagine what McGillicuddy meant by offensive odors; there were none, and he had certainly smelled none on the people of Seaward. He could not say the same for McGillicuddy.
"Now, sir, if you will sit here," said McGillicuddy, showing Appleby into a small room. It had a single wooden chair next to a table with a few objects on it. McGillicuddy gestured grandly toward a particularly dirty glass half full of some beverage, the sight of which revolted Appleby. "What may I show you, sir? We have some very nice wenches," he said, winking and guffawing, a wave of horrible breath rolling out of him toward Appleby. Turning his head briefly Appleby said, "no, no need of such."
"No? field hands, then."
"I, I have no large fields, sir. My servants do lighter, useful work in small fields, gardens, and the house."
"Ah, yas, yas. You want presentable servants.... no wenches? no, no, you said so, yas. Well, then comely male servants for footmen, valets, butlers, and the like, eh?" Appleby nodded, eager now to get the thing over with and be on his way, away from the odious McGillicuddy.
"Right!" said the slave dealer, showing more quickness than he had so far, "Let me find, shall we say five or six likely speciments for house slaves? Also, good breeding stock, I assure you. Now, here," he said, indicating the objects on the table, "is some goose grease. You may wish, sir, to make... an examination," said McGillicuddy, "to check for piles and other infirmities." Appleby looked in shocked fascination at the pot of grease on the table. "And here sir, are towels and soap and water.... oh, and some waste paper if you wish to examine the Negroes for," and here he winked horribly and grinned, showing a line of rotting teeth, "for their breeding potential. Quite alright, sir, quite the done thing, feel free." Appleby looked at him questioningly, genuinely puzzled. "Oh, you know sir," said McGillicuddy, and made the unmistakable motion of masturbation with his right hand. "Good breeders, dontcha know, yas!" He guffawed again and left the room to find some... some goods.
In the hallway was the sound of McGillicuddy giving loud directions and the answering murmur of soft voices, the shuffling of feet, the opening and closing of doors. Appleby thought about what was to happen. Examinations? for piles? for breeding potential? He began imagining what he could do, what would happen. Powerful, contradictory feelings rose up in him. He remembered that when he was a boy, his mother expressly told him not to eat any of a pie she had left to cool in a pie cupboard. Of course, he ate the whole thing, with shocking intestinal consequences, but it felt so good to do it while he was eating. Appleby now stared into the pit of something he felt to be evil and wrong... but his imagination told him that it would feel so good. Not for the first time since coming to the South, the spirit of slavery arose in him, a spirit of total control and ownership over other people's bodies. He began to think, to plan, to lust.
"Now, sir," said McGillicuddy, a little breathless, wheezing in the doorway, "I have some prime Negroes here in the hallway, sir, and will send them in one at a time for your perusal. I know, I know! not buying today! But can't hurt to look, can it? Look 'em over, send 'em out, I'll send in another one" he said jovially, then reached over and pulled into the doorway the first slave that Appleby would examine.
Into the room McGillicuddy pushed a coal black youth of perhaps eighteen, then departed down the hall. The young man stood with head bowed, awaiting orders. He was six feet tall, whippet thin with long, hard but thin muscles up and down his arms and legs. His belly was thin, rising out of flat-sided hips that curved out in back, pressing against the tight, white cloth wrap that was his only garment. His abdomen did not have prominent muscles but was a plain of smooth muscle beneath night black skin, so black it was nearly purple. His chest was high, and made of two taught, rounded but generously thick muscles with pointed, deep black nipples on oiled skin. It appeared as if his whole body might have been lightly oiled for presentation in the market. Appleby was overcome. He rose.
"Come," was all he said. The slave approached, eyes still downcast. Appleby stood a foot from him, then reached out and with a violent jerk pulled off his wrap. It fell, revealing a long, ten inch penis, not very thick in the shaft, that curved slightly to the left. A surprisingly dense, bushy patch of black pubic hair sprang out from above this snake, and continued down around the youth's penis onto his balls, which were carried in a large ballsack that dangled four inches below his groin. A feeling of total power and control surged over Appleby. With his hand he lifted the chin of the slave, who nevertheless kept his eyes downcast. Thick, wide lips, purple brown and of equal size top and bottom, a wide nose with flared nostrils, thin jet black eyebrows, heavy turtle lids on his eyes in a thin, long face. His head must have been shaved only a few weeks ago, for tiny, wiry hairs covered his scalp tightly, not grown enough yet to have formed a cap of hair. Appleby, in total freedom, ran his hand over the rough, sandpapery texture of the youth's scalp. There was no sound and no complaint. With both hands he massaged the lips, pushing his thumbs into the mouth, which the boy opened for inspection. Cupping both hands over the high chest muscles he kneaded them, pinching the nipples hard, making the youth wince--and Appleby did that because he could.
Sitting down, his own penis straining against his trousers and breathing rapidly, Appleby said, "Turn around, bend over." The youth did so, exposing tight buttocks and a wrinkled dark brown asshole. Appleby looked at the firm ass for a moment and then slapped it hard, making the boy gasp, and he did it because he could. Coating his finger with the grease from the pot, Appleby plunged it into the hole, not caring what he "examined" but merely wanting to show his dominance over the youth, who grunted as he grabbed his knees. Appleby wiggled his finger around, pushing it in as hard as he could, then withdrew it. "Turn around," he said again, and when the youth did so, Appleby caught up a piece of wastepaper. Looking at the enormous penis, he grasped it and began to pump, slowly at first, then faster. The night black youth looked to one side and his high, rounded, muscled chest began to rise and fall more rapidly. Appleby could see the youth's heartbeat pulsing the skin beneath his high chest. Involuntarily, the penis grew in Appleby's hands, deep brown head creeping out of the oily, silky, jet black hood. Appleby tightened his grip and pumped it, squeezing each time his hand moved towards the head. The boy's head lolled from side to side, he swallowed hard, his pelvis began slowly pushing forward; he did not want to do these things but the white man's attentions were more than he could resist.
For the first time in his own voice, the youth hoarsely spoke: "O! Master!" and powerfully cocked his pelvis forward and up, his smooth belly muscles tightening. A plume of white semen erupted out of his penis and fell down over Appleby's hand and along the pulsing shaft of the dick. Twice more he shot out his seed, then quivered and stood still. Appleby caught the white liquid in the waste paper, examined it closely, smelling it, then discarding it. He washed his hands, turned the youth around and slapped his ass again, propelling him into the hallway naked, his only cloth covering snatched up in haste as he ran. The white man was beginning to feel drunk with power.
Again McGillicuddy appeared, his fat hand around the neck of a powerfully built man, milk chocolate, perhaps in his late twenties or early thirties, six and a half feet tall. A powerful neck grew straight up into a bullet shaped head, also covered with tiny little black wiggles of hair indicating a recent shaving. Small, bent ears grew above columns of neck muscle. His eyes were dark and lowered, his nose surprisingly small for so large a man, mouth surprisingly small by rounded like a purple brown heart. Heavy lobes of milk chocolate chest muscle arched out over a belly that, although muscled, showed a little flesh on it, with a slightly protruding navel. Heavy rolls of muscle like hams and sausages rolled along his arms and pillar-like legs. Was this a "house slave" and not a field hand? Appleby gave it very little thought.
"Come," he called again, and the slave approached, to have his thin white garment ripped from his loins like the last black. A very thick but not very long penis over heavy but tight, close-in testicles was revealed. The foreskin ran beyond the head, ending in a little pucker of skin. A few tight whorls of pubic hair grew above his thick cock. "Turn," said Appleby, and the large man did so, revealing heavy, prominent, rounded buttocks. Appleby wordlessly pushed the man on his upper back. The slave knew what was expected and bent over, gripping his knees. He grunted hard as Appleby rammed a finger in the middle of his large bottom, then a second finger, as the man squirmed but dared not protest.
Pulling his fingers out suddenly, he turned the man around and quickly grasped his penis. It thickened even more but did not grow very much longer. His fingers not reaching all the way around it, Appleby applied his other hand, both his white hands sliding up and down on the chocolate rod. The man's breathing picked up, the great curved lobes of his chest muscles moving up and down. His eyes, downcast all the while, daringly focused on Appleby. Appleby gazed straight back into them, two strangers white and black, master and slave, both breathing faster until the black man grunted hard, pulled his hips back fast and slammed them forward faster, and came. His semen came all in one rush, an amount less than the first slave. Appleby did not bother with the pretense of "examining" it but let it run over his fists and fall to the stone floor. As soon as the white milk stopped flowing, Appleby handed the man his garment, which he silently put back on and just as silently left.
Another slave and then another and another was presented in this way. Appleby was into a different world of power and possession, his trousers spotted with his own leakings. One of the slaves, rail-thin and with a yellowish complexion, dared to speak to Appleby as the white man was pumping his surprisingly dark, long rod: "Master," he panted, "if you want to buy me... I have a wife, master," his breathing became faster, "she's here, master," and it became even faster, "please master...." and he did not finish the thought as he clenched his hips and squeezed out his semen. Afterward, Appleby was too ashamed to speak to him, and the man hung his head in despair as he left.
The second to last offering for sale was pushed into the room by McGillicuddy with his hands on both shoulders, a boy no older than ten. Eyes lowered but his body speaking a message of proud defiance, he walked forward to stand right in front of the white man and removed his own thin garment, more of a g-string than any kind of cloth. He was the deep chocolate color of Troy and Priam, thin boyish muscles on a slender frame, no hair at all on his body but for a tight cap of half inch long kinks and knots on his head. Appleby sat for this examination and wordlessly turned the boy to the side, in profile this time. He greased his thumb instead of finger and shoved it inside the boy's rectum. The boy flinched but made no sound, although his breathing came more quickly. Appleby kept his thumb there to see what would happen. The boy stared straight ahead defiantly, a tough little man, but slowly his small, dark penis, no more than two or three inches long and thin, began to grow and stick straight out in front of him. The boy, embarrassed, covered himself with his hands. "You like it, don't you" said the white man; in response, the boy hung his head, blushing a darker chocolate. Appleby brushed the boy's hands away quickly and grasped his small organ between thumb and the first two fingers, then began sliding them up and down the straight black rod. It took longer for the boy than for the older slaves, and it occurred to Appleby that few customers would attempt to "examine" such a young boy for "breeding potential," so this may have been a new experience for him. The boy's thin frame began to quiver slightly, then shake. Appleby pushed his thumb into the boy's ass even farther. A puzzled look came over the boy's face and then his knees slumped, almost giving way, and his whole frame shook in a quick, dry orgasm. Panting, he looked sideways at Appleby in frank wonder and amazement. Appleby quickly picked up the g-string from the floor and draped it over the stiff little penis that was sticking out and up at a forty-five degree angle, then slapped him hard on the butt which sent the boy scurrying out of the room.
"Perhaps one more, yas!" cried McGillicuddy, approaching the door from the hallway. Appleby was about to protest. His orgy of power and control, his riot of domination and manipulation, was subsiding. How could he have done this? How could he have behaved so? How could he have so rudely dismissed the slave who feared parting from his wife? He raised his hand and had opened his mouth to decline the offer when he saw the youth McGillicuddy pushed around the corner and into the room.
"Just in last night, sir, a prime mulatto from the Caspar Plantation just up the road, sold from an estate. You, sir, have the privilege of being the first to consider this fine specimen as an addition to your own household staff and, um," and here McGillicuddy's piggish eyes twinkled, "breeding stock!" He lumbered back into the hallway.
Appleby scarcely heard him, transfixed as he was with the beautiful young man, boy actually, who stood before him. It was as if a marble statue by Michaelangelo had come to life and turned brown. Not a dark brown but a balanced cafe-au- lait color on a flawless skin. He beheld a youth of about sixteen, five and a half feet tall. His face was strikingly beautiful, a wide forehead with deep-set hazel eyes beneath thin black eyebrows, a nose somewhat longer and less wide, less flared, than among pureblood Africans. His cofee and cream complexion set off a mop of jet black, twisting loose curls lying flat in a tangle around his head, a nest of black snakes that just covered his ears. His face was rounded but not at all fat or puffy. If there was less Africa in his nose, it took its residence in his mouth: full but not wide lips on a thick base that curved out between nose and strong chin, his reddened brown lips formed a full, nearly heart-shaped mouth, a slight crease parting the upper lip in the middle, from which it spread out like wings.
The youth's neck was thin but strong, atop a boxy chest with square, thick pads of muscle and dark red-brown pointed nipples. From his chest, muscles rippled lightly over his ribs as his torso narrowed dramatically to a thin waist; the muscles of his abdomen were not overdeveloped but in perfect proportion, a tube of taut strength. His slightly recessed navel was a lighter color, nearly the color of Appleby's own skin. If this was a houseboy, he had certainly not gone to fat in performing his duties. Below his short white cloth covering were beautifully shaped legs, light brown skin covering flowing muscles.
If he had only arrived in the slave market the night before, as McGillicuddy said, the youth had not had time to be broken down by his sad surroundings and by the humiliations of the experience. He kept his head respectfully bowed, but his eyes peered under long, curling lashes at Appleby. The white man rose and asked a question he had asked of none of the other slaves that afternoon.
"What is your name?"
"My name is Cassius, sir."
"Cassius... I am Mark Appleby."
Surprised at a white man who would tell his name to a slave in these circumstances, the youth nodded thoughtfully, then seemed to gather up some courage, for he said in a rush, "Master, if you buy me, sir.... please, sir, my sister is here also." A note of urgency, even desperation crept into his voice. "I can't leave her here, sir... I... oh, please sir, take us both together." Forgetting to avoid eye contact, he looked with urgency into Appleby's eyes.
"Your sister...." Appleby began. "Where are your parents?"
"Our mother died of a fever two years ago, master. Our father...." and here something liquid glinted in the corner of the boy's eye, "our master died a week ago. His wife was embarrassed by us and didn't want to keep us. She sold us to Master McGillicuddy. Please sir," he said, returning to point, "take both of us."
Appleby didn't know what to do. A powerful desire came over him, not to own and control the boy but to discover him, to have him of the boy's own free will, to share himself with him. A sister? What was he to do? He thought of "examining" the boy but decided he did not want to do that in the filthy offices of the vile McGillicuddy, the floor already slick with semen. And he thought of the poor man with the wife, and how he might make amends in some way to the universe now for his earlier lack of caring.
"Wait here," he told the youth, and went into the hallway. McGillicuddy was rocking in a straight back chair in the door of his office down the hallway, placed so he could monitor who emerged from the room. He jumped up, sensing a sale. Just looking, indeed!
"Yas, yas, have you made a decision?"
"The boy in there, uh, Cassius. He says he has a sister," began Appleby.
"Ah yes, very natural you should be interested, sir, very natural--if you'll excuse me," he said, popping into a nearby room. Appleby had no time to voice a protest. McGillicuddy was gone but a minute, then stepped back into the hallway and gestured for Appleby to enter the room. Stepping into it, he was taken aback. There was a young woman, perhaps a year older than Cassius, about seventeen, and stark naked. Utterly unused to such scrutiny, she held her arm over her breasts and one hand over her pubic triangle, looking down and to one side, her coffee and cream skin a match for her brother except for the red flush that a blush had laid over it. Nevetheless, Appleby was struck by her beauty, an attraction he had not thought he would feel again after his experiences of the last few days. "What is your name?" he asked distractedly.
"Portia, sir," said McGillicuddy, answering for her, "likewise a mulatto, brought in last night, but seventeen years old sir, and" poking Appleby in his vest with a filthy finger, "very ripe sir, yas, very ripe indeed."
Appleby turned on his heel and went into the hallway, then the few steps into McGillicuddy's office. The slave trader waddled as fast as he could to follow. Wheeling about, Appleby asked, "How much for the two?" A few moments of arguing followed, ending in the naming of a final price. "I shall go bankrupt, sir, I shall!" said McGillicuddy, who nevertheless seemed pleased with the quick sale.
"Look here, sir, I hope to be able to take them, but I must make arrangements and, uh, consult my associates first," said Appleby. "Let me put a deposit on them and I shall return tomorrow either to take them away or reclaim the deposit." This was agreeable to McGillicuddy, and papers were drawn up and signed immediately. Plucking at Appleby's elbow, he showed his customer to the door. Just before he stepped down to the street, however, Appleby turned back to McGillicuddy.
"I want nobody examining them any longer until I return," he said. "I want them clothed and fed," and he cast a fierce look at the slave trader. Taken aback and a bit cowed, the portly man readily agreed. The bargain was concluded, and Appleby hastened into the street, a bit late for his rendezvous with Troy and Priam. Again, he thought he saw someone who looked a bit like Priam slip out of sight into an alley two blocks away, but there were so many Africans in Charleston that he gave it no more thought.
Troy greeted his master warmly at the boat. Priam was cordial but a bit distant. The boat was heavy with all the goods stowed upon it, and the men had all they could do to manage it in the brisk wind that picked up off the sea. Troy was in his usual good spirits, but he could sense that both his father and master were lost in thought, so it was a quiet trip back.
Once the boat had docked at the pier on the island, Appleby ran ahead to gather more help and the donkey cart, while Troy and Priam remained to unload the boat and carry the stores up the stone steps. It took over an hour for all the males of the island to transport the goods and store them in the barns and sheds of the plantation, but Appleby was glad to be able to help more in the work of the plantation. And after his sometimes harrowing experience in town, he felt he had come home again.
The goods stored and the donkey put to pasture, Appleby gathered up the packet of papers given to him by Smith and approached Priam. He asked him to gather all the people of the plantation who could come to the library of the main house. A dark cloud passed over Priam's face, but he curtly agreed and set about his task. A few minutes later, Appleby sat in the library as his slaves filed in singly and in groups. Hector came first and gave his master a quick, dignified hug. He seemed not perturbed at all when the twins came bouncing into the room and gave the same treatment. Troy came in with Athena, looking much recovered from her delivery and with a quiet newborn wrapped in a blanket. Finally, Priam, Cass, Helen, and Juno entered. Appleby rose to speak.
"People of Seaward, I have here some papers of special interest to you. You know that I have had no experience of slaves or slavery, nor of running a plantation in my life, and so I formed in my mind a decision even before I set out on my journey here. My experiences with you all have but confirmed that decision." He gathered breath to go on, but Priam stood up quickly. A powerful emotion worked on his strong, dark face. Without a note of hope in his voice, he nevertheless spoke out.
"Don't sell us, master. Please, sir. I know you went to the lawyer and then the slave sellers today, master. Seaward is all any of us know. It is our home. Please sir....." and his voice trailed off, his head hanging.
The room sat in stunned silence. Hector, standing nearest Appleby, reached out and touched his sleeve. "Master?!" he asked in a voice of incredulity. Pan and Bacchus sat stunned, their high spirits dashed, Pan shaking his head vigorously and Bacchus mouthing "no, no, no." Troy had a shocked, blank look on his face. Cass and Juno looked away, Juno covering her face. Only Helen, standing near Athena, waited with a watchful, observant look in her eye, and Athena.... Athena looked directly at her master, a radiant smile on her face, her understanding having pierced to the core of his intentions.
Appleby himself stood speechless for a moment, looking around the room in shock. "Sell you? Sell you!?"
He sat down hard on a chair and pulled out a handkerchief to mop the sweat that suddenly stood out on his brow. Memories of the sorry houses of the slave traders flooded back to him, as well as his own disgraceful behavior in that place. How Pan and Bacchus and Hector and Troy and Helen and the others might be treated in such a place.... He found voice again and stood back up.
"As of one o'clock this afternoon, you were all free. Here are the papers from the attorney, one for each of you--yes, one for the baby, name to be filled in later." Athena, radiant, nodded in satisfaction, her intuition verified. The people of Seaward looked around the room at each other in disbelief. Slowly, disbelief turned to comprehension and sorrow turned to smiles. Frozen bodies began to move slowly.... with three exceptions. With a great, shared whoop, Pan and Bacchus rushed the white man, knocking him back into the chair and nearly smothering him with hugs. Hector completed the job--with tears running down his dark brown cheeks he piled onto Appleby. The whole room broke out into a commotion, everyone talking, wondering, clapping. Struggling out of the knot of boys, Appleby untied the packet and with great ceremony handed to each person, from Priam down to the squirming infant, a notarized official document proclaiming their freedom. The copies, also notarized, he put into a safe in the library where they could be kept out of harm's way in case they should ever be needed. Priam looked at his paper, read it carefully, then standing very erect and with great dignity walked over to Appleby and shook his hand, moisture glinting in the corner of his eye.
As soon as he could regain the floor, Appleby called for silence, then resumed his speech.
"We must all think about what to do about this, however. You have several options, as I see it. First, I must tell you that I will give all of you one year's wages. It is not adequate recompense for the years you have worked unpaid, but it is what I can afford. Second, if any of you want to be returned to Africa, I have been in communication with a charitable group in the North that returns former slaves to Africa, to the colony of Liberia." Blank looks went all around the room; he might as well have proposed returning them to Mars. He continued. "If any of you simply wish to leave Seaward, you may do so with my blessing although," and here he looked all around with a smile, "I should miss you terribly. Finally, if you wish to stay here, I will pay each of you a fair wage. Now, I do not want to bias your decision, but here is how I see it: Life is very hard for black people ashore. Legal freedom does not go very far, and can easily be lost. I am afraid that the question of slaves and slavery in the States is heading for a very dark and unhappy period. I think," he said, "that you would be better off to stay on Seaward. But I leave it to you. I am going to walk outside now for a period and let you talk among yourselves to set your own courses of action." And with that he left the group, which looked around at each other thoughtfully.
Sitting on the verandah in the approaching twilight, Appleby could hear animated voices in the library discussing what was a momentous, even life or death decision. After some time he heard the door to the verandah open and Helen stepped out, smiling at him. "Come," she said, taking his hand in her small, dark brown one. He followed her in to the library.
Priam had been elected to speak for all. "Master Mark," he began, and when Appleby started to protest the salutation, Priam continued, "Master Mark, thank you. How can we say that enough? You have done what is right, and perhaps that is reward enough." Here the white man nodded vigorously. "As for your generous suggestions: First, we are all in agreement as to what to do. Second, we all wish to stay here," and at that moment a thunderous roar of applause, whoops, shouts, and laughter erupted in the room, Appleby's not the least among them. "Third, about money.... we will take your offer for a year's wages, and fair wages in the future, but.... what would we do with it? We cannot go into Charleston and easily buy things. We have decided to ask you if you would invest it for us. I think perhaps you are skilled in doing that?" Appleby agreed eagerly to that financial plan. "And finally, about staying here. We do some reading, you know. I have read that the term 'master' is used in many ways; for instance, it has been used to mean 'leader,' or as a term of respect. That is how we wish to use it toward you.... Master Mark." Appleby could not speak, but only nodded, his eyes welling up. Priam became more serious then. "There is another reason for you to appear to be our master, and for us to appear to be your slaves, sir. If people ashore discovered we were all free... if they discovered how we live here...." and he looked at the boys, then at Appleby, then at Athena and her child and at Troy and Hector; it was clear there were few secrets here, and that everyone understood his implications. "If people thought we were other than an ordinary plantation, with slaves and a master, I think our way of life would end here quickly. We are happy living the way we have been, Master Mark," he said, with an emphasis on "Master." He continued, "let us all continue to live in that same way. To the world you are still are master, and we are still your slaves." Heads nodded and voices murmured agreement all around the room.
Appleby rose. "We are agreed, and we are as one." A mighty shout went up from all. "Now, he said, "who will help me to bring up wine from the cellar? Who will bring out the best fruits, cook meats, prepare bread? Who will make music? I think this calls for a celebration." Everyone rose up at once and began bustling here and there, making ready for a feast. Smiles broke out all around, and everyone addressed Appleby as "Master Mark" even more pointedly than before, and surely more joyously. Indeed, it felt very little different at all. Passing in the hallway, Troy stopped him with a quick, bone crunching hug and brushed his neck and ear with his lips. The twins grabbed him around the middle several times, achieving a quick hump before he shooed them off, laughing. Hector and Helen quietly embraced him as he came by them, expressing their feelings in lingering hugs.
Soon a feast was set out on the dining room table, which everyone partook of on the rocking chairs and steps of the verandah. Priam produced a strange instrument of African origin that Appleby believed he had seen described as a "banjo," and played tunes on it while the company danced on the lawn. Nobody made any comment when Appleby danced with Troy, Hector, or the twins, and they thought it gracious of him to give young Helen a few twirls and a peck on the lips, little knowing of their intimacy the day before.
As the party began to die down, Appleby called together Priam, Cass, Juno, and Troy for a conference. He explained the dire plight of the slaves Cassius and Portia, still at the slave trader's in Charleston.
"We might have reasons to bring them here beyond my own guilt," he said, not listing his lust for the boy Cassius as one of them. "There are but two families here, besides myself. We have three boys who may one day want a mate, and there are few options on the island. Although," he said, looking worried, "what Cassius, the sixteen year old boy, would do here I don't know. There is also the question of how many more people Seaward can support."
The group thought about the questions, talking softly among themselves. It was Troy who went right to the heart of the most ticklish issue: "Master, we don't have to match up all even, men and women. We can share. It's what we do on Seaward. Anyway," and here he looked to one side and a darker blush seemed to crawl over the dark skin of his handsome face, "some don't want to pair up like that."
There was a general nodding and agreement on that point, which surprised Appleby; the openness of Seaward was more widely shared than he had thought. What a place of natural freedom! What other freedoms, he wondered, have they enjoyed here, what other licenses with one another in the cabins and woods? Priam spoke up: "Master Mark, Seaward can support more people, especially if we can buy supplies and store them. You bought a lot today, master!" he chuckled. And in the end, it was Mama Juno who spoke the deciding opinion: "If your heart was moved to bring those two youngsters here, you should do it, Master Mark. We'll find room for them. Go with your heart."
There was general agreement all around, and agreement that it was time to clean up and go to bed. Many hands made light work. Priam, Troy, and Appleby decided that they would return to Charleston in the boat the very next morning, to bring back the mulatto slaves Cassius and Portia. All but one of the people returned to the cabins, and the house lights were turned down low. As they did the night before, before so many changes, Troy and Appleby sat rocking on the porch, enjoying small snifters of the Napoleon brandy. This time it was Troy's turn to rise and extend his hand to his master.
"Bed, Master Mark?" he asked.
"You know, Troy.... I'm not legally your master. You're not legally my slave. You are not compelled to do this." Appleby felt he had to say it, but he also felt sure of the response.
"Master Mark, sir.... I wasn't really forced to do it before. None of us were. Nobody did anything with you because you owned us... master." His dark face flashed a brilliant white grin in the night. "You were just the prettiest naked white man any of us had ever seen." Both men guffawed at that, and Appleby rose to embrace the black man tightly. "And anyway," he said, tightening his grip on the white man's hand and tugging toward the door, "you are my master, and I am your slave, if not legally then deep in my heart."