A Slaves Strength

A Slave's Strength (Part Six):

Little Tommy's Tale

by

mechgogo

Tom woke before the morning alarm. He'd always been an early riser and the previous night had not been restful. No great surprise there; strange surroundings combined with a back full of welts didn't make for the best night's sleep. By the time his cell door slid open he had already blown through the series of stretches, hundred-odd pushups and similar number of sit-ups that he had been doing for years at home. The concrete floor wasn't as pleasant a surface as his living room carpet-especially for the twenty-five fingertip pushups he always ended with - but you worked with what you had.

When the alarm sounded, he used the five minute interval to brush his hair and have a cup of water. His muscles were still sore from Mistress Beth's attentions of the previous night but nothing he couldn't handle. The exercise had helped, working out kinks and flushing toxins built up under the various toys.

He spent the trip to morning chow scoping out his fellow detainees. It wasn't hard to work out who had gotten a visit the previous night. Bruised skin, limping walks and dazed, shocked expressions told him plenty. A couple of the younger kids were trying not to cry too obviously. At least one newbie older than himself shuffled along like a zombie, body on autopilot because the brain was not up to facing what had happened to them the night before. Several of the guards preened in a way that made Toms hand itch for his axe or the solid weight of a ball peen hammer.

Breakfast was a treat. Oz came through for him on the stir-fry. There was even some soy sauce in little packets. It wasn't the same recipe he had been eating for breakfast five, six days a week since his early twenties, but it was close enough his body wouldn't rebel at the sudden change in diet. He thanked the server and took his tray to the same seat he had used the night before at dinner.

Billy and Aaron joined him again. Aaron was all talk, jabbering on, wanting to know what happened to Tom the night before. Billy was just the opposite. He just sat there, picking at his eggs and toast, staring a hole in the table. The wince when he took his seat hadn't escaped Tom.

Tom nudged him. "C'mon Billy-man. Eat up. You need your strength." He took his own advice and dug in. He looked around. How long before a screw noticed the kid not eating and decided he was a potential hunger striker?

Aaron didn't get it. "What's wrong, Billy?"

"Leave it." Tom told him. "Man's in a quiet place. Let him be." He leaned across the table, lowered his voice "Billy, if you don't get that spoon moving, sure as Hell a guard is gonna flag you for a hunger striker and drag your ass off to the infirmary to be force-fed. I know last night was bad but trust me, these pricks can make it a lot worse."

Billy glared at him. "Oh, you know all about it, huh? You ever been raped?" his voice spiked at the end, drawing stares. Sure enough, a staffer was coming over.

"There a problem?" the guard asked when he arrived.

Tom shook his head. "No, sir, officer. Just a little conversation over breakfast."

The guy glared at Billy, dropped a meaningful hand to his baton. "Well, keep it down. We don't like disturbances."

Tom nodded. "Duly noted." When the kids nodded their assent the guard moved on down the aisle.

"See what I mean?" Tom asked when he reckoned they had the space to talk again. "And in answer to your question, no, I haven't. But I got six kinds of dogshit beat outta me last night and Comisky spent half the night damned near wrist deep in my ass."

"Oh, so because you got fucked by the hot lady collector that brought you in you what? You feel my pain?" You could have carved the bitterness and sarcasm in Billy's tone into blocks and sold it by the pound.

Tom shook his head, took a drink. "No I don't. Your pain's your pain. Same as mine's mine and Aaron's is Aaron's. If I could take yours onto me I would but I can't. I can listen though. Sometimes it helps. Your call. And just so you know: I never got raped but I was younger'n you when my best friend tried to end me. Younger still when my junkie prick of an old man tried to turn me out to his heroin connection."

Both boys just stared at him. Sometimes hearing about other people's horrible shit distracted from your own if only for a few seconds.

"Get the fuck out." Aaron said wonderingly.

"Your dad?" Billy asked. Even with what he had been through the night before Tom's revelation was a shock. "What the hell

?"

Tom nodded, took another bite. "You eat, I'll talk. Spoon stops the story stops. Deal?"

Both boys tucked into their food, Billy a bit more listlessly than Aaron but at least he was eating.

"My parents were both addicts." Tom began. "Mom OD'd when I was little. Maybe seven or eight years old. Dad - the prick - he hung around a few more years. Bastard had a real love affair with the needle, know what I mean? But he kept it together well enough the state never took me which I kinda regret lookin' back. Maybe if he'd fucked up real bad when I was young enough I wouldn't have had such a jacked up life."

Tom thought about that a second. If he'd had a more normal childhood he'd probably still be back east. He'd have never met the twins and right now his beautiful, precious Nicki would be coming to terms with her first experience being raped as a slave. He shook his head. For better or worse the choices his parents made, and the ones he made after they ceased to be a factor in his life, had lead him to this point. Wishing it had gone otherwise was stupid and pointless.

"So one night, Dad, he gets sick. And I don't mean flu or cold sick, you know? Needs a fix. But he's overdrawn with his dealer. So he works a little barter out. Couple hours with me in return for enough smack to make it through the weekend. Course I don't know this at the time. I just know he wants me to come over to his house, have something to eat, maybe play some Nintendo, you know? I knew what he did for a living but so what? I was actually stupid enough to think he felt sorry

for me, the prick."

"So we get over there and just like he promised, he hooks me up. Sits me down, fries up a couple pork chops, and some French fries. Even finds some Oreos for dessert. Tells me he needs me to do him a favor, take something home with me for the old man. But first, there's somethin' else

he needs me to do."

Tom stopped talking for a minute then. He stared at his tray. He wasn't seeing it or the table or anything else in the cafeteria. Instead he was fourteen again, back in that East Detroit apartment with the freezing winter wind screaming through the streets outside and his dad's dealer on the couch, starting to paw at him.

"Cho-mo motherfucker takes me by the hair with one hand and tries to shove the other down my pants." Tom's eyes went lizard-cold and his voice was arctic in a murderous rage as he revisited the nearly twenty year old memory.

"Holy shit

!" Billy said. "So what happened? Your dad change his mind and show up to pull him off you?"

"I bet he beat the guy's ass." Aaron said. "Probably shot him"

Tom laughed at that, spooned up some more rice. "I wish. I got myself out of it and fuck-you-very-much daddy dearest for getting me into it in the first goddamned place. I cut my way clear of him and hauled ass. Didn't go home for two days."

Billy's face fell at how the story ended. "See? Least you fought back. And you won too. And you were younger than me."

"And I nearly got my damned head blown off!" Tom told him. "Went out a second story bathroom window into the middle of a Detroit winter in nothing but jeans and a raggedy-assed sweatshirt. Ran off into the dark, rounds poppin' off all around me. Damned near froze to death too. And here, check this out."

He showed them a shiny discolored spot about the width of one finger where the muscles of his left shoulder sloped up to meet his neck. "Near miss. Couple inches in a couple different directions," Tom snapped his fingers. "No more Tommy O'Neill."

"I thought your last name was Donovan." Aaron said.

"It is. Took my wife's name when we married. O'Neill didn't mean shit to me so I dropped it. And as for me fighting back, I was a different person than you under different circumstances. I damned sure wasn't locked up in a place like this with a chip in my neck and some fucking pervert trained in restraining people and expecting a fight comin' at me with me naked, and half asleep in a concrete room."

As if on cue the order to strip came over the speakers. Tom rolled his eyes and shucked off, muttering a few choice words in Irish as he did. When the boys looked at him inquiringly he explained what language it was, and how it was nothing they wanted to say around someone who knew the language. Before sitting down he handed his folded clothes to Billy to sit on. The metal stool wouldn't be pleasant under the circumstances but he had a higher threshold than the boy. Aaron followed his example, earning a nod and smile of respect. You looked out for your own as best you could.

"What did your dad do when you came home?"

"Beat the shit outta me. After his boy got stitched up he sent some muscle around to pay Pops a visit. They stomped his ass and cut him off cold. He couldn't buy a gram with the keys to Fort Knox after that. Had to find a new dealer. Wasn't long after, dumb bastard nodded off with a lit cigarette in his hand. Woke up on fire, screaming like something out of a horror movie. Died from his burns a little while later. I was in foster care by then. I didn't even go to the funeral." Tom suppressed a smile at the true memory of the carefully edited story.

"So what?" Billy demanded. "That makes what happened to me all better? Your dad died horribly but you came out on top and it's supposed to make what that sick fuck did to me last night not mean as much?"

Tom shook his head. "Never said that. Point is, everyone's got pain. Everyone gets into corners they can't get out of and fights they can't win. No shame in that. What defines a man is how he handles it. Does he curl up and quit? Or does he say 'Yeah, this is a steamin' pile of shit I'm in, but it'll pass. All I gotta do is keep my eyes open for the way to something better and not give the universe the satisfaction of curling up in the meantime."

And I never said I came out on top. The foster family I went to? Their eldest had the same tastes as the old bastard's connection had. Tried a similar run of bullshit on me his first visit home from college."

"You cut him too?" Aaron asked, fascinated. Like a lot of suburban boys his age he had an unhealthy and unrealistic enthrallment with life in 'Da Hood.' Tom was like something out of a movie or TV show to him.

Tom shook his head. "Nope. Him, I busted in the head with a clock radio. Think he lost an eye from it. Beat him with a hockey stick til I got tired and then robbed the hell out of the place. Took all the cash, jewelry, even his car. Sold it all to a couple guys my dad used to know and started livin' on the street. Figured if that was what the straight world had to offer me, piss on it."

Memories of terrified nights freezing in abandoned buildings, eating out of dumpsters, running from the local gangers until he hooked up with a set of his own, rose up. He wouldn't wish those days on somebody who had set his girls on fire.

"Ok, so fine. You had a messed up childhood." Billy said. Tom focused on his food. Kid if you had even half a clue. "How's that help either of us? We're still stuck here and you said it yourself; it's not like fighting back's an option for us."

"There's more ways to cope with a bad stretch than your fists or a blade." He pointed at them with his spoon. "Look, this is gonna sound sick as hell but it's still the truth. You two are better positioned to have an easy time of it than me in a lotta ways. Biggest ace in my hand is being a voluntary. That whole rarity, high-end collector thing. But I'm older and a damned sight more intimidating than both of you put together." He laughed a little. "Shit, I'm almost exactly your combined ages."

"Now you two: you're young, you're good looking and you're likeable. Use that

. Man or woman, whoever buys you there's gonna be opportunities. Not many things in this world as accommodating as some middle aged old bear or cougar afterglowin' with their teenaged sex toy. "

Billy looked like he wanted to throw up. Aaron at least had the brains to consider it. "So, what?" Billy asked. "We just let them use us and cash in on it after? What's that make us then?"

"Somebody doing what he has to to survive." Tom answered. "It's gonna happen either way. Might as well make the best of it."

The two boys didn't say anything to that. They just finished their meal in contemplative silence. Tom did the same. They were thinking now and that had been the whole point to the conversation. Much as he would have liked to he knew he couldn't protect his young friends from what was to come - in Billy's case what already had the night before - but with a little luck on his part and a little brains on theirs maybe he could help take the edge off things. What was the point of having lived and survived a life like his if you couldn't use what you'd learned along the way to ease smooth the road for the people following behind?

The next two weeks passed quickly enough. Life settled into it's own pattern as it does no matter where a person finds themselves. Tom threw himself into excelling at the various classes. Most of it was already second nature to him. A lifetime on his own had taught him more than most about many of the skills needed by a good domestic. Good manners were second nature to him unless provoked. And a decade satisfying the needs of Nicki and Angie had honed his abilities in the bedroom until they were sharp enough to shave with. Oddly enough that was one of the more stressful parts of his education. It seemed like half the men and most of the women on staff made a run at him at some point or other. Part of it was the realities of the training program. Domestic indents were expected to perform where, as and how their so-called betters demanded. Not that Tom was likely to ever acknowledge most damned degenerate slavers as his superior in anything but depravity.

Part of it, he knew, was simple human nature. Rarity was, by definition a sought after quality. Gold was less common than copper so naturally people fought wars over gold and threw copper into fountains. The same principle was at work in Tom's life. The average staffer at the center might, if they were lucky, be able to afford a lower end ICL of their own. Somebody like Tom, destined for service in a millionaires bedroom or the stable of one of the porn companies that took advantage of the sudden massive influx of no-limits talent available was completely outside their reach under normal circumstances. So naturally it was rare if he went more than a couple hours at a time most days without being ordered onto his knees by one of the males or into any of a number of positions by the various ladies working there. Everyone wanted to get a piece of the voluntary while the getting was good. For someone who preferred his personal space it made for some painfully tense times.

Only two serious incidents marred his time at the center. The first occurred a few hours after his conversation with Billy and Aaron the morning after Mistress Beth's first visit to his cell. He was along the second floor tier his way to a fitness class before lunch when Frenchy's familiar voice rang out from the first floor.

"Hey! Tommy Boy!"

Tom tried to ignore the asshole. If he let Frenchy get to him his control was bound to snap. Then, instead of seven years as some rich person's hopefully pampered status symbol he'd be spending the rest of his life in the federal pen on a murder beef.

"I said freeze your ass, boy! I'm talkin' to you!"

Tom stopped and looked down at where his playmate was standing. "Something I can do for you, Master French, sir?" He asked. His words were correct and his tone properly respectful yet somehow they still sounded like Tom had said something rude about Frenchy's mom.

"Hell of a performance with my partner last night. Very impressive. Y'know, I figured we got off on the wrong foot. All that hostility between us and whatnot. So I did you a little favor. Sent those women of yours proof of just how well you were doing here. Wonder how many of the moves you used with them they'll recognize in the show you put on with Beth."

Tom laughed at him. "Talk's cheap, Frenchy. You got some proof or you just fartin' out your mouth again?"

The agent pulled out his phone. "How's this for proof?" He tossed it up to Tom who caught it with ease.

Tom looked at the screen. A sent email was on the screen. Below two addresses he knew by heart was a video thumbnail with a play icon in the middle. Tom felt a mix of nausea and rage swirl through him. As an added twist of the blade the evil little shit had routed the email through the same address he used to send his letters of the previous day. Tom pushed play.

It only took a few seconds to confirm the reality of French's sick, cruel stunt. Tom's first instinct was to whip the phone as hard as he could into the center of the gloating bastard's smug grin. Then leap the rail and see how many times he could bash the base of his skull against the concrete floor before a zap from Oz ended the party. Instead he did something worse.

Tom resumed walking in the direction he had been going. His fingers flew over the phones controls. How long did he have? Thirty seconds? A minute? Plenty of time. Hit the forward function, scan through Dipshit's address book. Hi, Mistress Beth! So is that your private email or your work one? No matter. And look at this! What d'you reckon the odds were that C.Harris@BOI842 was Mr. Charles Harris, the nice man who had welcomed them to the center just the day before? Better than average Tom thought.

"Hey, Mistress Beth." he typed as he walked. "Check out the bull's-eye your idiot partner just drew on the back of your head with my girls. Tom."

Down below it was occurring to Mark French that he might have erred in handing his phone off to Tom. He followed along parallel to the wiry voluntary's course, looking up at him.

"Hey! What do you think you're doing with my phone? Give it back damnit! That's an order!"

Tom ignored him. What other kinda mayhem could he cause? Hey, just for fun why not add the address of Rick, his lawyer to the list? Something like this might just be actionable, lawsuit worthy. There were laws in place protecting both the indentured and the free. Tom could think of a few Frenchy had just danced a bulldozer over. Hit the send key and off you go. Privately he started a clock running in his head. Six years, three hundred sixty-three days, Mr. Agent French, Sir. Make the most of 'em.

"Here's your phone back, Master French, Sir." Tom said, never breaking stride. He tossed the expensive communications device over the rail with a casual sideways flick of wrist and forearm. Mark French watched in horror as his brand new phone that he had stood in line two hours

to get arced out over the open space below the second tier. It reached the top of its trajectory and plummeted to Earth to explode into a million glittering pieces of expensive garbage.

Up on the top second floor that uppity little shit Donovan was sitting with his back against the wall. "I'm waiting!" he called with a grin and cocky laugh. The cocky smile disappeared when French activated his chip but the way Tom kept laughing even as he screamed against the pain would haunt the agent's sleep for years.

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