Chapter 1

 

Barney Smaller and I were schoolfellows, yes; but friends, never! I loathed him because he came on to me from puberty onwards and I'm straight. I always told him to get lost and that I wasn't and never would be interested in him or his disgusting practices.

It culminated when Coach called me into his office on the way to the showers after a football practice in my final year of high school and I was therefore late in getting to the showers and as a result, Barney and I were alone and naked and he tried to kiss and hug me. I floored him but fortunately Coach saw it all and he was expelled.

I lost touch with him after that but I went on to university and graduated as an architect. During my years at Bond University (on the Gold Coast of Queensland, Australia) I had worked for an architectural firm and after graduation continued on with them as a professional.

And then he struck.

He had apparently been following my life for he blamed me for his expulsion from school, even though it had been Coach who had charged and pursued him. I think I would have merely finished off the fight then warned him to stay away from me for good, but that's as may be.

Anyway, as it all turned out in the end, he planted a friend in the administration office of my firm and it was he who used my computer terminal to surreptitiously milk sums of money from the building maintenance (and some other) accounts and transfer them into an offshore account in my name.

I have to admit if it was me investigating the fraud, I too, would have been convinced of my guilt and as the total sum in that account was now in the hundreds of thousands, the jury took no time to find me guilty and the judge sentenced me to slavery-for-life, our law still treating crimes against property far more seriously than those against the person.

I was devastated, of course. A twenty-two-year-old, up and coming young architect with a bright future and was now reduced to naked slavery for the rest of my life. I stood there in the dock, stunned, while my parents and friends looked up at me in horror. It was clear they too believed in my guilt and they turned away, not even bidding me farewell.

I was escorted from the dock and down into the slave preparation room where I was stripped of my clothes, all of them, until I was stark naked. My clothes, watch and my university fraternity ring were all confiscated and would be given to the poor or sold.

I was then pushed into the depilation machine and there electronically denuded of all hair below my eyes including my moustache and beard for slaves, by law, are not permitted any clothing of any kind or body hair. I believe this is for two reasons: the first to easily identify a slave as opposed to a free person and secondly to shame us by the totality of our nudity, our genital organs on females as well as males now totally exposed to all and sundry for the whole period of our slavery - in my case for the rest of my natural life.

And of course, as I now contemplated my naked exposure to the world at large, I cringed in shame. Yes, of course I had unashamedly stripped with the other guys in the changing room and showers after sports practice at school and university, but what I was now facing was a total public nudity where everyone around could openly ogle my body and its muscles, not to mention my genitals.

As a keen sportsman, I had played football and cricket in season, swum in our swimming teams and competed in athletics, too, but my greatest love was gymnastics and this had moulded and toned an already athletic physique to something the girls (and Barney and his ilk) had oohed and aahed over. In the case of the girls, I played up to them, grinning at their obvious admiration. The males I scowled at.

I was also born with a rather large set of genitals: a long, thick cock and rather outsize balls that dangled from my loins.

My body hair had not been all that dense - except at my groin where a thick, wiry crop of brown curly hair covered most of my groin. Now that I was bared of it all - a totally nude slave, I cringed in more shame as I caught sight of myself in the mirror.

But they weren't having any of that. "Come on, you, join the other slaves out to the STV" (which, I now learned meant Slave Transport Vehicle).

Slavery had been introduced all over the world about thirty years ago. It was before I was born and it had been seen as the answer to a world-wide problem of crime gone mad including religious terrorism, crimes of violence, fraud and theft, wife and child abuse, etc. etc. Prisons apparently were bursting at the seams but were useless except to take the prisoners off the streets and were anyway thought to be 'schools for more crime'.

Slavery was seen as the answer to a number of problems: it would wipe out the huge cost of the prison system and instead return an income to governments; it would transfer the cost of feeding and disciplining them to their owners who are required to keep their property in due bounds; and as slaves are no longer considered as human beings, they may be used for any purpose their owner wishes, including sex, ultra-hard labour and even as ponies, saddled or harnessed to a gig.

That was what I was now facing and I shuddered some more as the line of new slaves moved along the corridors of the courthouse basement towards the yard at its back.

At this point, I had no idea who had framed me. I had pleaded with the police and my lawyers to investigate further but they were all convinced I was guilty and didn't even try, I'm sure.

I never once even thought of Barney. He had been gone from my life for five years by that time and I had no idea what sort of life he had made for himself after being kicked out of school.

The STV is nothing if not just about the most shameful means of moving human beings that has ever been invented, I'm sure. Remember this was by intention. Slavery had been proved as the very best answer to crime of all kinds that has ever been tried and to make it more so, the nakedness, the total nudity (at least below the eyes) were intensified by a constant public exposure of the slaves right out in the open where men, women and children could see them in all their shame and humiliation.

It is merely a long, flat-top semitrailer upon which has been erected a frame consisting of a three-metre-high braced pole at the front and rear of the tray, onto the top of which a rail has been welded. The rail has three dozen runners fitted to it and from each of these dangles a half-metre long bar with a thumb-cuff welded to each end.

And yes, you've guessed it. This was how we were to be transferred from the courthouse to the SSC (State Slave Centre) for processing and sale to the public at large.

I have already said that criminal slavery had decimated the incidence of crime but it still exists and once a week, on Friday evening, the STV arrives at five to collect all the slaves sentenced in that week so there are often quite a few to be transferred. On my day, there were twenty-five of us. Not all 'lifers' like me; some for the minimum of one year, up to thirty. After that, you got life.

They were a mixed bunch of course. Twenty-five males and five women. Physically they were fat and thin, tall and short, ugly and handsome and this applied as much to the females as to us males.

But unless they were clearly unsellable, all would be auctioned off on the morrow. Those who were held over might be too sick or judged worthless and might be kept to see if something could be made of their bodies and so the SSC at Southport was not a huge place. It could market its week's product from the two courthouses in the area and on my day, this amounted to thirty-one males and seven females.

One-by-one, we were marched out onto the loading bay and onto the tray-top and then made to climb up onto the stepladder that was placed under the next empty runner and to raise our hands up so our thumbs could be locked into the small cuffs.

Our order was quite at random. In front of me was a female, a rather nicely-bodied one, I might say and I was glad because I didn't want my naked body touching another male. Alas, behind me was a rather fat man whose naked body was quite disgusting and I shuddered again as I thought of him crashing into me as the vehicle accelerated or slowed down and we slaves ran up or down the rail.

And it was as bad, or worse, than I had dreamed. I had never gone seeking out slaves to ogle and gloat over. Yes, I knew they were around but while I occasionally saw one carrying a lady's parcels or even running his master along the street as a naked pony-slave, I was faintly appalled at it all.

Now I was totally involved and as my thumbs were locked into the tiny cuffs and then my body pushed up ahead, I just wished the earth would open and swallow me up.

That journey was every bit as bad as I had expected. It wasn't that far from the courthouse to the SSC but it seemed like a hundred kilometres to me and all along the way, there were hundreds of people lining the streets to watch us go by. Apparently the route and the timing was standard and these ghouls lined up every week to watch the newly-made slaves go by on their way to misery.

Don't think I am denying that criminal slavery hasn't worked. It has. Crime has been decimated and religious terrorism has been virtually wiped out. Wives and children are now very much safer than they were and crimes against property just about eliminated, too. But I was guiltless. The system had convicted me wrongly and now, here I was, a naked slave for the rest of my life with no hope of salvation. Even my parents thought I was guilty!

Once at the SSC, our processing was the essence of efficiency.

We were released, one by one, and brought into the receiving room where we were ticked off the list by the receiving officer and where waited the MO who inserted a tiny silicon chip onto each of our right testicles, or, in the case of the females, onto the inner lining of their clitorises. These serve to apprise the authorities and our owner of our exact location at any given time. They do much more than that, but more about that later.

We were then graded by the OIC into the order by which we would be auctioned the next morning. Females always brought very much larger sums than we males (natural if you think it through: there are very much fewer of them and as I understand the ratio of straight to gay persons is about one in twenty, and as men buy very much more slaves than women, it follows the women will be worth a lot more than the male slaves).

They were lined up first in the order the OIC judged their value. And then he similarly graded us males under the same criteria. As a young(ish) athletic and reasonably handsome male, I ended up in third place, the two ahead of me younger and better looking than me.

We then passed through the cleaning race (like a carwash) and then fed.

Feeding slaves is simplicity itself. Very soon after the reintroduction of slavery, some enterprising soul invented Slave Chow which is based on chook pellets and looks very much like them except that it is made by steaming a combination of cheap (but healthy) meat, vegetables and grain in the right proportions under pressure in giant hoppers. The output from this is partially dried, mashed into a paste and extruded as the pellets which are then fully dried, bagged and marketed.

A double handful night and morning together with as much water as the slave can take in allows the pellets to re-form in his belly. He derives no pleasure from eating it for it is tasteless in its pellet form but it is ultra-healthy and conduces (with the compulsory hard work required by law of each slave) to develop and maintain as near to perfect bodies as possible.

It also promotes regularity and thus allows owners to train their slaves as to the times they are permitted to pass their wastes.

All of this I met with head-on as I passed through the various intake processes in the SSC.

I was ticked off the receiving officer's list then had to stand in front of the MO while he made a tiny nick in my now smoothly naked scrotum. He then peeled the wax-paper from the really tiny, wafer-like chip and using a pair of tongs, stuck it to my right gonad and then placed a Band-Aid over the small wound.

I was next assessed by the OIC and allocated my place in the queue forming ahead of me.

Next was the waste removal process and if you think we may have been afforded some privacy here, think again. We were herded into the cleaning room and there made to straddle a low V-shaped trough, squat down over it and then pass our liquid and solid wastes, eyeing the back and bum of the slave in front of us as we did. Once that was over, we were steered into the cleaning race and it was indeed rather like a car-wash with hot soapy water spraying all over us and then a series of rotating drums with either brushes or rubber thongs to lash and flail at our flesh. These were situated so as to reach every nook and cranny on our bodies and I know I felt as if I had been flayed after coming out of it, realising that it was exfoliating any dead skin on my body so as to make it look as young as possible.

Then I had to place my hands under the chute of the Slave Chow dispenser, down the pellets as quickly as I could and then drink copiously from the spigot on my way through. We were admonished to drink as much as we could take in for if we didn't, we would very likely become constipated and their treatment for that was castor oil - in very large quantities and we were assured we wouldn't like the effects of that horrible-tasting treatment!

As I hadn't eaten since breakfast that morning, I was hungry but within a few minutes of downing the water, I felt satisfied, if not happy with my 'meal' for there was no sensation of eating or taste. One minute I was hungry and then the feeling simply faded away.

And once more I slumped as I thought ahead. That ration of Slave Chow was now my only food! I had delighted in dining out, trying new experiences and enjoying the company in the restaurant and afterwards. Now, just two handfuls of tasteless pellets and water!

We were then herded along to our sleeping places and here, yet another shock. Slaves do not merit bedding, or even beds. In the SSC, we were allocated a rectangular space painted onto the bare concrete floor. The space was three metres long and one wide and we were admonished not to allow any part of our bodies to move over the line once we been ordered to lie down inside it.

"Try it," said the OIC grimly. And he pointed to me. "Yes you, Slave Roger, move your arm over the line.

I did but immediately felt an unholy pain in my right testicle, screamed and quickly retracted it whereupon the pain ceased as quickly as it had begun.

"Now you will understand we can control you very minutely," he went on. "If you are sent on an errand by your owner, he will have programmed your route and time into your chip. If you are late or stray off-course, you will suffer such a pain as this slave just did.

"Now, just so you all know what it feels like, you will now all feel the same pain..."

He spoke into a small brooch-like thing pinned to his uniform collar and every one of us screamed and doubled over in agony. The message was now etched into all of our brains, sharp and clear. Err and that unholy pain would follow.

And then he left us to lie there cold, miserable, fed and cleaned but thinking only of our futures as slaves - me for the rest of my life. Maybe sixty years of this misery?