Steve's First Job

Steve's First Job by Pete Brown petebrownuk @ yahoo.com

Read all of Pete's stories at Groups.yahoo.com/group/petebrownseroticstories

Part 5

Stu: It was really good to see you again - but I guess I'll have to get used to sharing my old buddy now, with Inga. It's a pity you cold only make it for the weekend, and even then your mom and dad used up so much time. I was hoping to take you to see my slaves, as I'm really proud of them and the way they're shaping up. It's a pity Inga was so very rude when we were sitting on the porch, just like old times, and I started to tell you about them - I don't want her to come between you and me, Stu - our friendship goes back too far. But it is going to be hard, if, after you're married, whenever we meet I can't talk about my work. I mean, the job a man does sort of defines him, doesn't it? I know she agrees with your parents and wants you to be a pastor, like your father, or some sort of "do gooder" in the anti-slavery league. And I suppose that's only like my dad wanting me to be a successful businessman, like him, really. But what do you want., Stu? Surely now that you're away studying you'll have had your eyes opened a bit - being a dirt-poor pastor down here isn't the way you were meant to spend your life, I'm sure: you're cleverer than that.... almost as intelligent as I am!

Anyway, as the Scandinavian wouldn't really let me talk to you as a buddy, let me just catch up and tell you where I'm at. After that fuck of two, the ex-sergeant, the next morning when I had all the slaves neatly lined up, kneeling there with their backs straight and their butts resting on their heels, hands clasped behind them ready for feeding, I went along the line with the feeder and gave them all their morning ration of chow. I couldn't resist the temptation to further humiliate two by pretending to wrinkle my nose from the faint smell of shit coming from his hair - just to remind him, if a reminder was needed, that last night I'd fucked him - no, I'd done better than that, I'd taken his cherry, as I'm sure he'd never allowed another guy that pleasure - and then wiped my dick clean on his head. Then I turned and addressed them all, reminding them of the new rules - that they were not to have any, and I meant any, sexual contact of any kind without my express prior authorisation. I then went to say "But as we saw last night, you're not to be trusted - two and four were only punished as examples to the rest of you: I know most of you jerked yourselves off, and I want to warn you that if there's any repetition, next time it won't just be the cane, but a visit to the whipmaster. And as you're all so untrustworthy, and can't be relied on not to play with yourselves at night, I'm going to try to make it a bit easier for you: from now on, you are all absolutely forbidden to touch your own dicks and balls and asses at any time, any time at all. If you are seen touching those parts of yourself, you will be flogged. So whenever your hands move towards your dicks, you'd all better stop and think!"

I told them they could then all stand, and they did, facing me at "attention" (I'd found it relatively easy to use the military stances), so I gave the order for them to turn to the right, and march off to the showers. It seemed to help them to march like this, although there couldn't be a lot of "stamping" as their feet were now bare as I'd decided that having them wear work boots, as some draymen allowed their teams to do, was more trouble for me than it was worth. It was surprising how quickly the soles of their feet had toughened up and they now had a layer of thick, horny skin over them. Jon had advised me about this, saying that although it made the slaves look a lot more sexy to be working naked except for boots, it also tended to make them less careful with our clients' packages we were supposed to be delivering, as they could be less careful and toss them around knowing that if a package dropped, it would be unlikely to break their toes! As you know, I'm determined to have the absolutely best team in the depot, so I had to forgo the erotic pleasures of seeing these big guys just in their boots as there's no way I was going to allow them to be "sloppy" in their work!

I like watching the slaves shower in the morning anyway - there are always two or three sets of them in there, and it's a good opportunity to look over the "competition", as well as being able to have a chat to the other draymen as we wait whilst the slaves clean themselves - they have their morning piss and shit on the way in, as there's an area about three feet wide covered with bars, and the slaves crouch there and crap and piss before moving on in to the shower area itself. My guys kind of clustered together as they usually do and began to wash, and I watched carefully so that the moment one of them went to start soaping his pubes, I could rap out "Stop! You fucking slaves - it's only about two minutes ago I absolutely forbad you to touch your own dicks! Did you all empty your brains away down the grating as you dropped your turds?" They looked puzzled, and tried to get on as usual without touching their dicks, and when they looked as if they were finished and were starting to move out of the spray, I snapped at them "You fucking slaves - you're still dirty! No team of mine is going to go around with dirty asses and dicks - clean yourselves!" I saw their look of puzzlement grow, and so I went on "You're not allowed to touch your own dicks and asses, but that doesn't mean you can't help out one of your buddies - I want to see you all soaping a dick, and an ass, and I want to see it NOW!"

I did feel a bit sorry for them - I mean, they never showed the slightest trace of embarrassment at showering together, as I guess that's what they were used to in their barracks all their lives as soldiers, but they went to almost fanatical lengths to avoid touching each others bodies as they did so. Perhaps it's something the marines teach them, perhaps they're all afraid that if two big husky marines touch each others flesh in the showers, they'll realise that they prefer the manly feel of another marine to a woman; who knows!. Anyway, I had noticed they all never touched in the showers, and now they had to stand there and not only touch each other as you sometimes see football players and so on do after a match, with arms around their shoulders, but that they were going to have to soap each others dicks, massage another guy's balls, and even slide their soapy fingers down their buddies' ass cracks to clean them out after the morning crap! They started slowly at first, all very hesitant and tentative, and then they began joking about it as their soapy fingers slid along their buddies' dicks and probed down those magnificent muscled butts, and after a very few minutes it was as if they'd always been together like that in the showers.

They came towards me again then, smiling and grinning, but I told them to halt. I called two to the front, and said curtly "Are you properly clean?" and he said yes, and I rapped out "Liar! How dare you think you can try to deceive me - I've been watching you, and seven, who soaped your dick, never 'skinned you back and did a proper job!" I ordered seven over and told him to kneel in front of two, then, as we all watched, I told two to clasp his hands behind his neck to keep them well out of the way, and then seven to take his buddy's dick, and this time to wash it properly, making sure there was no unpleasantness lurking under the 'skin. I could see two gritting his teeth in a mixture of frustration and shame as seven shyly held two's dick in the palm of one hand, and then gently moved his 'skin back so that we could all see the darker-coloured, moist head lying there. Two almost wriggled and squirmed as seven teased and fiddled with his 'skin and head, and I knew he would be so embarrassed as he was exposed to view like this - someone once told me that it's the ultimate nakedness for a guy with a 'skin, to have to expose his head to view, in a way that us cut guys just can't appreciate.

It was good - another step on two's road to complete slavedom, as he realised that even this last shred of his personal privacy was no longer under his control, but mine.

That night, Jon and I fucked another two of them, and the good thing about that - apart from the fun it gave us, of course - was that the four who we hadn't yet covered came to realise that it was only a matter of time and that their turn was going to come. I also observed two standing there clutching the bars, his whole body language screaming out rage and anger at what we were doing to what he clearly regarded as "his" men. Still, it was good to see that whether because of the threat of punishment, or because he was coming to realise that as a slave he had no effective control over what was going to happen, he remained silent. When we'd finished that and put the two slaves back into the cage, I stood there outside the bars and commanded them to kneel in a line, as if I was going to feed them. When they were all there, I told them that I'd decided to give them a small reward as they'd all worked extremely hard on the exercise machines that afternoon, and that therefore they'd be allowed to have sex. I saw them all instantly cheer up at the prospect of being allowed to jerk off, but then their looks changed to completely stunned shock and outrage as I said "So get to it - but, remember, you're not allowed to touch yourselves, so simply lean over and do the guy next to you."

It was two as usual - he was in the middle of the line, as if to act as the focus of all of them - and he said, quite politely, I suppose, but with a hint of irony in his voice "Thank you so much, sir. But we'd prefer not to have sex now." I looked at them, and said, quietly, "Does two speak for all of you?", and they all nodded and murmured assent. To emphasise how wrong they were, I slashed my cane vigorously across the bars in front of them. "You fuckers are slaves!", I rapped. "And the sooner you get to remember it, the better and easier it will be for all of you. If your owner tells you that you will have sex, you will have sex. You have no choice. You all agreed with two, and his wrong-headed thinking has earned you all a punishment. Stand up, grip the bars in front of you, and push your butts backwards."

They to their feet and stood there, knuckles clenched as they gripped the bars, and looking nervously at each other, wondering what was going to happen next. I summoned up all my courage and opened the cage and went in, scuffing my feet through the straw, and examining the bodies lined up in front of me. I went along the row, slapping at the butts of some of them who had not thrust them out far enough, and then said "Remember, it's disobeying me, preferring to listen to two, that has got you in this position!" I then went down the line again, this time slashing out at their butts with my punishment cane, laying one hard stroke across each half of each of the slaves' butts. The anguished cries of the first ones as I worked my way down the line made it far worse, probably, for the ones at the other end who had to stand there, gripping the bars, with their anticipation adding to the pain they knew they would suffer. But their training was working, and none of them let go of the bars, and when I'd finished I walked out of the cage and locked the gate behind me. "Right!", I called out, "Before I needed to punish you, I gave you an order. Now, get in line, and jerk off the guy next to you."

They were still reluctant, and I saw a lot of them instinctively look towards two, as if for guidance. But it was clear that he'd given in - or had decided that he didn't want to get any more punishment meted out to them - as he just shook his head slightly as if in resignation, and knelt down into the straw and then reached out for the dick of the guy on his left. It all took a surprisingly long time, actually, as some of the guys didn't immediately get an erection when one of their buddies began to stroke them, and following that, some guys do take a long time when they're jerking off anyway, don't they? But I did have eight nice slimes of cum sprayed out from the cage to lie there, wet and white, shining under the lights, on the concrete of the pathway. As they watched, I walked along, inspecting their productions, and I told them that for slaves, they'd produced a reasonable quantity but that I was not pleased with the time it had taken and that this was perhaps something we should practice. That produced another lot of anxious stares at two, who now had difficulty in meeting the eyes of the other slaves.

Apart from the times when I was directly "training" my slaves and the time spent discussing them with Jon, this was a pretty boring time for me: the exercise machines were almost automatic so for long stretches of the day I had nothing to do. We couldn't move on to having me take my dray out, as we were waiting for delivery of a new one from the makers in Tulsa, and there didn't seem to be any way we could speed up the process, in spite of my almost daily phone calls to them. Things only really got interesting in the evenings when I furthered my plan to sexually subjugate the slaves by fucking them, and after another couple of days Jon and I had done all eight between us. These men, all of whom had previously thought they were "straight" now knew what it was like to experience a dick, and it was interesting to compare their reactions. Two was bitterly resentful and angry, four was just a wimp, and the others all varied - interestingly, two of the men didn't seem to object at all as I mounted them on the horse, and when I offered them my dick to slather and lube, they sucked at it eagerly and with obvious relish. And instead of screaming and raging at the indignity of my taking their cherry, I found their asses almost welcomed me, and the only sounds were their sighs and moans of sexual excitement. I was so surprised by this behaviour that I went back to the office and took another look at their personnel files which we'd got from the Pentagon, and to my astonishment found they were both married with a couple of kids each. I asked Jon about this and he just smiled and told me it was pretty normal - the marines were full of men who actually liked sex with other men but who had to conform to the norms of the service and who therefore married and fathered kids, whilst taking every opportunity to really enjoy their buddies when on an overseas posting, or a training exercise, or similar.

I noticed that the two slaves who enjoyed proper sex, five and eight, always seemed to be sleeping next to each other so that they could experience each other, and that when told to "line up" they took trouble to get next to each other so that if I ordered the slaves to jerk off their neighbour, they'd be together. And it was to these two who facilitated my next step: almost as if under the control of two, or afraid of him, the other slaves never asked if they could be allowed to jerk off or anything, and their sexual release mostly came when I ordered one of the mass jerk-offs, or decreed a "free" night when they could do as they wished. But one day this all changed, and when I asked my customary question, eight suddenly asked if he and five could fool around together that night. I saw two give them a coldly furious look, as if he saw this as some sort of gross disloyalty to him, and later I went over to the security lodge and asked to see the tapes of the early evening in the cage, to see what happened once I'd locked them all in and left.

Two, five and eight were having a furious argument, with two accusing the others of letting down the service, and of being fags. Five and eight really tore into him, though, pointing out that he wasn't living in the real world - they were no longer Marines, just slaves, and different rules applied here. They told him that they had little enough fun in their lives as slaves, and that they were going to enjoy themselves when they could, with each other. Five put his arm around eight, and in full sight of two they kissed - only briefly, admittedly, but it seemed to me to be a pretty courageous thing to do. I thought two was going to lash out at them physically, and a couple of the others had to restrain him for a few moments, but then it all seemed to quieten down and five and eight found a space for themselves right against the back wall of the cage. I watched with interest as they kissed and fondled each other, then kissed more passionately as they stroked at each others dicks - they could almost have been Jon and me, as if anyone had been eavesdropping on our encounters in his room they'd have seen substantially the same behaviour. I couldn't help noticing that most of the other slaves were rigidly silent and still whilst all this was going on, as if they were listening and observing five and eight, and there was an almost palpable air of tension around the cage until the two lovers finally fired their loads and fell into an exhausted sleep, arms and legs companionably intertwined.

It was time then for two's next "lesson" and I was quite looking forward to having those big strong thighs spread in front of me with his pucker waiting my attention - I'd decided I was going to fuck him "buckaroo" again, even though that might be pretty violent because of the way two threw himself around against the restraints, as his obvious hate of what was happening to him really turned me on. I was however not confident that another fucking - or even a series of further fuckings - would finally "break" him, but what other choice did I have? I was mulling this over in my mind when I remembered eight and five, and my choices suddenly expanded.

That night I went down to the cage, alone this time, without Jon, and ordered two to come out as I thought it would add to his humiliation if he actually had to drag the heavy punishment horse over to where the others could see, rather than me doing it. He stood there then, looking so very unhappy as he evidently thought he knew what was going to happen next, and was therefore very surprised when, instead of ordering him to lie on the horse, I instead briskly told him to turn around, and then to raise his hands behind his neck. I used the restraint cuffs from my belt to hold his hands in position then, using the D ring on his collar to hold the cuffs in place. He began to look puzzled, the more so when I ordered eight out of the cage, locking it carefully behind him, and then put eight onto the horse and fastened the ankle and wrist restraints.

I kept two standing there as he and the other slaves watched me use some of the sun oil they were accustomed to, to thoroughly lube and stretch eight's ass. Then I slathered my palm once more with oil, and went and oiled two's dick - he was used to this by now, from the regular morning's activities before exercising, and so raised little objection until, suddenly, the realisation of what I had in mind must have struck him. As I stroked the oil into his dick he suddenly said "No, sir, you can't make me do this. I won't." I slapped his dick with my open palm, just catching his balls as I did so, and he winced with pain. "Won't is a word that slaves do not use, two. It's not even a word that ought to be in their vocabulary. You will do whatever I say, or take the consequences."

He pulled himself up to his full height and flexed his muscles and said quietly "Sir, I won't fuck another guy. And you can't make me. There's no way you can make one man fuck another." I just smiled, and stroked his dick again to make it go properly hard, and then neatly slipped his 'skin back so that his moist dick head popped out and I could oil that, too. "See, two - we're already almost there. Like all men, you can't help throwing a wood with the proper stimulation. And now all I need to do is take you over to eight, and present you to him, and then you can fuck away...."

I took firm hold of his dick and balls, and with that kind of "encouragement" I moved him, hugely reluctantly, over to where eight was still lying, ass open and waiting. But when we got real close, two began to resist, and in spite of my strong pressure on his balls he just wouldn't move - his features were all screwed up as he suffered that terrible pain you have when your balls are under attack, but it was clear that he was not going to move any further, in spite of my insistence. I realised I was in trouble now - I suppose I could have caned two's rump until it was red and bleeding, but even then he might still resist, as he had that dreadful totally stubborn look on his face; and if he did, I would have demonstrated to all the watching slaves that two had bested me, and it was his determination that had won out. That might mean that I would have to move to the next stage of punishment and order a public whipping for him, and that I didn't want to do, as the skin of the back, buttocks and thighs never really properly recovers and my team of dray slaves just wouldn't look good.

I'd begun to wish that I'd never started this, but I'm a pretty creative guy, and at once an alternative solution presented itself, knowing, as I did, that two regarded himself as something of a "sergeant" and felt

responsible for the others. It was too bad for eight that he had got caught up in all of this, but then, that's life, I thought, as I took my punishment cane from its holster and began to methodically beat eight's butt. His screams were piteous - usually, as I've told you, I only give slaves like eight a couple of strokes as he's generally well behaved, but this time my cane rose and fell twenty times, across both his butt and his thighs, before I stopped and paused for breath. There was stunned silence in the room, except for the sobbing of eight, and I didn't have to raise my voice to make myself heard by all of them. "Right, two, this is all up to you now. I've punished eight for your failure to obey me: you slaves should understand that I treat you as a team, and if one member of the team fails to perform in any way whatsoever, the whole team, or any member of it, can be punished. Now, stop resisting me, and come over and fuck eight. If you fail to do this, he'll be beaten again. And I'll go on beating him until you obey me."

Two just stood there, shaking his head slowly, whether from disbelief in what I'd said, or in defiance, I'm not sure which. So I took the cane up again and gave eight six more stripes cross his already battered butt, then said "And now six more, to the thighs....".

I was gratified to hear two call out "No! Please, don't, sir....." And I stayed my arm, holding the cane high in the air, ready to strike down immediately if I was displeased. "Please, sir, if you're going to punish me, punish me!", two went on, sounding very anguished. "It's not fair to punish eight for something that I've done....". I struck down hard on eight's thighs, once on each, causing him to scream again, and then in the silence broken only by his continuing sobbing, looked at two again and said "Two, you don't understand, do you? You're all just slaves, and there's no such thing as being 'fair' to a slave! You're all just my property, and I'll treat you all any way I want. But if you're really concerned about 'fairness', you ought to consider yourself - are you being 'fair' to eight by making him suffer this agony, when it's you who is failing to obey a simple order? You can make this stop, you know, simply by behaving as a slave should and obeying me. Now, before I start on eight again - and I think it might be interesting to tawse his calves this time, as an interesting variant on the pain he's already in - just get over here and fuck him! You know it's not a problem for him, as he likes taking dick. So obey."

To tell you the truth, Stu, I began to get worried as two continued to stand there, still shaking his head in that curious way, as if he was almost stunned by what he'd seen me do. I was only marginally afraid that two would attack me, as he was pretty helpless, with his hands cuffed behind his head. But I didn't want to have to carry on beating eight, as there's no point in permanently damaging a slave, is there? And yet, if two continued to disobey me, what choice would I now have after I'd started down this route? Any backing off by me and all the slaves would see that two was the stronger man and my authority would be ruined. I unclipped the tawse from my belt, and repositioned myself a little further forward by the side of eight, as you need a longer "throw" and different angle to use the tawse effectively rather than the cane. I raised my arm, and to my great joy, heard two call out "No, sir, please, don't..."

I stopped, and gestured to two to move forward. In spite of the incredible sexual charge in the air and the ring around his dick and balls, he'd gone soft, and I wondered if this was some new form of subtle defiance of my will. So I grabbed his dick and began to jerk him quite harshly, 'skinning him back and raking my nails across his sensitive head as I did so.

He did, of course, go stiff, and leading him by his dick as if it was a convenient handle, I moved him right up to stand between eight's spread-eagled thighs, and then did that thing that I find incredibly sexy: I moved two's dick head up and down the smooth, sweaty crack between eight's butt cheeks, so two would feel that incredible sensation in his manhood. Eight's sobs were turning into small gasps of pleasure as I did this, and my own dick was tenting my shorts, I can tell you! Two seemed both reluctant and excited, but his dick was gratifyingly hard in my hands, so I finally stopped and positioned it right on top of eight's dark pucker. "OK, two - in you go!", I said cheerily, but the big male just stood there, and I worried that at this last hurdle my plan would even now fail. I wasn't going to have another "discussion" with him, so as he stood there, almost frozen with indecision, I quickly raised my cane and slashed at his butt.

Two hadn't seen it coming at all, and he surged forward with the shock of the cane's stroke, forcing his dick into eight almost all the way. Eight gave a satisfyingly loud cry of pain and pleasure as two's dick skewered him, and two's own cry of surprise, outrage and pain only added to my excitement. Two was now right up against eight, his thighs in close contact with the aching flesh of the guy on the horse, and I now went and stood right behind two, so that he could feel the cloth of my clothing pressing against his naked body. I gently rubbed the stinging marks on his butt, as I said into his ear, quietly, "Now, two, it's not so bad, is it? Don't you like the feel of that hot, moist ass gripping your dick? So are you going to be sensible now and do as you're told, or do I have to punish you and eight again - I know you don't care personally, but think about eight there: I don't think his ass and thighs can take much more of the cane!" I could feel his whole body tense as he thought about it, and I pressed home my advantage, not waiting for his reply. "Come on, boy, just ease yourself back, and then go forward slowly again...", I whispered, at the same time gripping his firm muscled hips with my hands and gently pulling him backwards.

Of course once he'd got started like this, and had felt that exciting stimulation of his dick by an ass, I had no more problems. I stood there, "guiding" two in and out, at first somewhat reluctantly, but then, as the inevitable excitement of sexual stimulation took over, I was able to stand back and watch two begin to thrust more and more vigorously into eight. It was almost amusing, actually, to see this stud, who had protested so vigorously about engaging in proper, man on man, sex taking to it so readily! He was soon really slamming into eight, totally disregarding the effects on the poor guy's caned butt as his body slammed into the flesh with that characteristic slapping noise. Eight's own satisfied moaning as two had begun so gently now turned back into cries of real passion - you know how it is, when you're really hurting, but you're gripped by the overwhelming enjoyment that only a dominating, controlling dick can bring to some men.

In spite of two's apparent acceptance of what he had been made to do, I was glad that I had taken the precaution of cuffing his wrists to his collar, as once he'd finished and pulled out of eight he wasn't able to touch himself, and had to stand there with his dick slimed with his cum and eight's ass juices, as a couple of last drops of cum gently oozed their way out of his piss slit. I could see all the other slaves looking at him through the bars of the cage, and he could see them too, of course, and would know that they could see this indisputable evidence that he'd fucked another guy. I took pity on him, though, and knowing that it's uncomfortable to have your hands cuffed like that for a long period of time, I went behind him and slowly undid the cuffs, whilst whispering, so that the other slaves couldn't hear, "So, two, that wasn't so bad, was it? In fact, watching you, it looked as if you were quite enjoying it! If you were to ask me, I'd say that you realised that you actually like the feeling of an ass gripping your dick..... But, anyway, it doesn't matter: what does matter is that you're a slave, and if I tell you to fuck one of the other slaves, in future you'll obey. The only consequence if you don't will be a whole lot more unnecessary pain and suffering for your companions - just think, if you hadn't defied me, you could have fucked eight without having made him go through all that unnecessary pain. Remember that, and act properly in future!"

I made two undo eight from the horse, and then I watched as two tried to apologise to the guy as they walked back into the cage - two had to help eight, as he could barely stand upright from the beating he'd received, and two was kind of slumped as he shepherded his companion along, as if he was ashamed of what he'd done. But was he ashamed of having fucked eight, or of having put eight through that beating? I just couldn't tell. Still, I went home that night really pleased that I'd made real progress at last - as I left, I told all the slaves that they were free to fuck or do anything else they wanted to that night, and I was looking forward to reviewing the video tapes the next morning to see what they got up to.

Look, Stu, you're not being a very good correspondent recently - I'm writing all this stuff to you and although my life must be pretty exciting at this point, surely there are things you're doing that are worth reporting to your old buddy..... Steve.

Steve: Sorry, mate, but I'm just so overwhelmed with all the work here at the moment. It's OK for you to sit down and type a few pages to me, but I have to spend hours at the PC anyway, researching and writing my class papers, and when I've got time to relax all I want to do is go over to the gym and throw myself into some hard physical exercise. And anyway, compared to your life, mine is pretty dull - classes all time, then study groups, writing the fucking papers: it's a real slog., And no slaves to do it for me. And such spare time as I do have I'm spending with Inga, of course - sorry, buddy, but the thrills of writing to you just don't compare with being with Inga. But don't worry - I'm not going to give up on you: I love Inga, and I think we're going to get hitched, but that's no reason why we can't carry on hanging out together and "talking" like this. Do tell me what else is going on. Stu.

Stu: Well, the next big excitement is that my dray has arrived! When I got to the depot the next morning I never got chance to review the tapes of the cage from that night as I was told that overnight it had come by the long-distance carrier. It's a kit they send you, really - the big, long flat bed, the sides that need to be screwed on, the axles have to be fitted into their brackets underneath, the wheels bolted on to the axles, and then the driver's seat fitted, to top it all off: I don't know if you've really looked at a working dray, Stu, but there's a nice driving seat at the front, high up above the slaves, so you can get good access to the backs and butts of both rows of slaves when you need to "encourage" them with the driving whip. And before you start writing to me again about how "cruel" it is to whip the slaves, relax - it's not a whip in the sense of the bull whips they use when a slave is really being punished. No, it's more of an "inducement" to them to keep working away - a very long, thin flexible cane with just a couple of feet of leather strap at the end: it stings, really stings, when it makes contact, but does no permanent damage at all. Most draymen don't really use it much at all, as it's more of a "show" thing to reassure pedestrians and customers that you're properly in control of the slaves. But of course it can come in useful when you've got a full dray and you get to that big hill on Piney Ridge Road - they tell me that even the strongest teams begin to falter as they get about three quarters of the way up, and you just need to "encourage" them then so that their bodies give up the residual energy the brain keeps locked away against emergencies. It's another of those things in the management of slaves here: as Jon says, "you need to be cruel to be kind". What he means, I guess, is that without the carriage whip the slaves would falter and stumble, and then the dray might even start to slide backwards, and they might get hurt. It's kinder to them to "encourage" them to get to the top, to avoid all of that.

When I got to the cage, though, and had the slaves come out and kneel to be fed, it was obvious there'd been some vigorous "discussion" the previous night, after I'd left: two was sporting a huge black eye, and his butt and back were bright red and there were various other bruises all over him. It seemed to me that the others had perhaps "paid him back" for having put eight through all that totally unnecessary suffering. I resolved to go and look at the tapes as soon as I could, as I would be intrigued to see whether they had just beaten him, or had gone the whole way and fucked him, too - I wasn't going to ask, of course, as a drayman normally doesn't show concern for the physical well-being of his slaves, except or at the morning physical inspection. I got a particular pleasure from really squeezing two's body as I did this daily ritual, feeling him wince and shuffle as my fingers probed at the red patches and bruises that covered him, and gasp as he tried to suppress any sign that he was in pain. Then, when I ran my finger around his collar, as I always do, and asked him about the black eye, he just mumbled "I stumbled in the cage, sir, and fell awkwardly against the bars." I smiled inwardly to myself at this pathetic attempt to conceal from me that he'd taken a beating from his colleagues, and was pleased that the other slaves had shown him their displeasure - two was such a big guy that I doubted that he could have been than damaged if almost all the others had to ganged up on him.

I thought they all deserved a reward, so I told them to kneel again in a line, and went down putting a tiny "slave treat" into each mouth as they lolled their tongues out eager to receive it. I don't suppose you've ever been into a shop that specialises in slave accessories - uniforms, punishment devices, that sort of stuff - but amongst the other things they sell are these "treats" which you can use to reward your slave when he's done particularly well and gone beyond what you'd hope a slave would naturally do. They about the size of a cent coin, but very thin, and are just some sort of hard wafer impregnated with the most intense fruit flavour. You drop one of them on the slave's tongue and he at once gets his mouth filled with a taste that he's forgotten (assuming you feed the salves on concentrated chow, as we do), and they start to salivate and lick their lips and so on. They really enjoy it, and it does them no harm as it's just the flavour, so sugar or anything. Of course you need to use them sparingly, as although they are inexpensive (about fifty for a dollar) they really should only be used exceptionally - I mean, a slave's standard of performance ought to be exemplary, oughtn't it? You don't want the slave to get into his mind that every job completed deserves a reward - just on those occasions when, like now, they'd done something exceptional.

Finally, I told them that they could prepare the dray for action, instead of having another day on the exercise machines, and they almost cheered at this welcome break in their routine.

I'll write again later, Stu, as I want to go and visit Jon. Steve.

End Of Part Five