Chapter 1

 

Madeleine Albrecht was never my friend. School-fellow, yes, but never friend. We were in the same class and were both mentally bright, usually vying for the top of the class position right through our school careers. We were also both good at sports, too, again always at the top of the tree.

These two accomplishments made us popular although in her case, her circle of friends tended to be those who sucked up to her because of her wealth. Her father had spoiled her rotten and doted on her right up to the time of his death a year after we both graduated from school, making her one of Australia's richest women. By this time she was a socialite of some note while I was at Queensland University, studying law.

It was in our last year of school and we were both showering after a particularly gruelling session in the gymnasium. By this time, female gymnastics had gone past the old balance-beam type disciplines and we now competed against men in exactly the same events and were thus hot and sweaty after working out on the horizontal and parallel bars.

We were alone in the showers and she moved up to me, grabbed my head and body and kissed me - hard, rubbing her naked upper body against mine. I am not and never have been gay. I had never given her, or anyone else for that matter, any indications that I might be interested even in experimenting in gay sex. I therefore fought her off with every resource at my disposal and then warned her that if she ever tried anything like that again, I would report her.

Of course, she scowled, muttered something about 'getting me', and then stalked off.

It wasn't that she wasn't beautiful. She was possibly the most attractive of any girl in the school and her body was something else: shapely, curves in all the right places, very athletic and with a skin as smooth as the proverbial peaches and cream. She had high cheekbones and wide-set, baby-blue eyes, a small aquiline nose and facial features that made everyone turn and look at her. Mind you, my own body was just as good although I didn't have her beauty. I was what is called 'fresh-faced'; the girl-next-door type although I think I was probably more muscular than she was for I really put my all into the gymnastics and other sports.

I didn't follow her life. I was just glad to be rid of her when we left school, but she hadn't forgotten my rebuff to her sexual advances to me and it was in my second year of law that it came home to roost.

I was doing legal work part-time, working in a law firm in Brisbane some days and attending lectures at others. What I hadn't realised was that she had a mole in the firm whom she was paying handsomely to cook the books and paying the proceeds into an off-shore account in my name.

The trial was sensational but neither the judge nor the jury believed my protestations of innocence for one minute. The evidence was there and while it was clear I hadn't touched the account, living as frugally as I had ever since leaving school, that didn't sway them either.

I was found guilty and sentenced to ten years' penal slavery - which was exactly the result she wanted. Penal slavery had replaced the prison system some years earlier when it was realised that jails didn't work and were very expensive. Converting a citizen to slave not only allowed the jails to be closed down and the land they stood on sold, but it actually returned an income to the exchequer for the proceeds of the sale of slaves went straight to the government. It was also more effective in other ways, too.

Slaves could not be bought by relatives or friends. If you managed to fool them and then went easy on your slave, the sale was annulled and they were confiscated and resold and you quickly found yourself in the same boat. No, all slaves were to be worked at hard physical labour all day and half the night, fed as cheaply as possible and, if clothes were provided at all, they were just rags. Many owners didn't bother with even a rag around his slave's middle, keeping them stark naked for the duration.

There was no prohibition on enjoying their bodies. however. Many an owner worked his slaves hard all day, then raped them at night. And their sexual predilections were of no moment, either.

Many a male slave owner had a stable of muscular young male slaves whom he raped at night - and vice versa, wealthy women enjoying their female slaves similarly. Of course, since the ratio of homo- to heterosexual people is about five to ten percent, most didn't; but it all came down to the luck of the draw.

Of course I didn't know then that Madeleine was responsible for my downfall. From the very first moment when the firm's office manager first detected the fraud, right through to my conviction, sentence and subsequent sale, I had no idea who had wrought this dreadful fate on me. I didn't even think of Madeleine. I hadn't thought of her since the end of my school life and had even forgotten that awful night in the gymnasium shower block.

It wasn't until I was actually put up for auction that it dawned on me. There she was, sitting right in the centre of the front row. She was staring straight at me, a big grin plastered across her beautiful face, her blue eyes as cold as ice and clearly displaying her triumph at my ruin.

I have said that slaves could be provided with any or no clothing. But that was after the sale. From the moment I was unloaded from the prison van at the Slave Centre, they made me strip naked, there and then, my clothes confiscated and given to the poor while I underwent a medical examination - a public medical exam for it took place on a sort of assembly line in a long room where we slaves moved up the line from the entrance while various doctors or technicians prodded and poked us, or administered other tests on various machines, recording their findings on keyboards which apparently inputted the data onto our files which would then be available to potential buyers when we were all sold on the following Saturday.

On either side of this room were tiered benches and the public could come in (if they had the price of the entry ticket) and watch us stripped and then put through the various procedures which evaluated not only our health but also our physical strength and stamina.

It was incredibly shameful and utterly degrading - on purpose. They wanted us to feel shame and humiliation as a deterrent to crime and this was another reason they admitted the public, of course.

We weren't separated as to sex, either. Male and female criminals were mixed up. All had to strip in front of the others, the guards and the paying public and submit to being fingered - yes, our sexual organs particularly, the males being teased to full erection and ejaculation (and the results recorded) and we females the same until we gushed and screamed in our shame. Our breasts were mauled and both sexes had their backsides probed with various objects and fingered digitally, too.

Oh yes, it was awful alright.

I don't know if Madeleine was there to watch that event. Probably, but if so I suspect she disguised herself. There was no such attempt to hide herself from me or others at the auction however. There she was, front and centre and gloating quite openly at my naked display.

Here too, there was no segregation of the sexes. We were sold in the order we had arrived at the Centre and of course, as I said, stark naked except that now, in line with government policy, we had all been depilated nude as well.

I don't know when it was decided that slaves would bring in more money if their body hair was removed, but it was very definitely the practice by the time I was processed. They didn't shave us, nor did they use a chemical spray or dip to achieve this so shameful and permanent treatment. Actually, now I come to think of it, it was probably the development of this so cheap and effective method that made them adopt it as the standard for all slaves - of both sexes.

We were merely lined up before the machine, issued with helmets that went over our heads and protected our head hair, our eyebrows and eyelashes, then walked through the U-shaped gleaming metal frame. As we came out the other end, we were clean of all hair except where the helmets had protected it. Males lost their moustaches and beards and all of us, the rest of our body hair, even at our pubic area (which was probably the main reason for it anyway).

It took just a second or two and zap, they were all gone. It didn't even hurt. There was just this tingling feeling and then we walked out, more naked than we had been since our birth.

They inspected us all on the morning of the sale but very few required a re-run. Of course, with this machine so cheap and so effective, many free people had opted to have their bodies treated themselves, but that was their choice. With us, it was mandatory.