Slavery 101

SLAVERY 101

By Jon Smithie

CHAPTER ONE:  THE COFFLE

The students emerged from the van, stiff from the last few hours of the drive.  The air was hot and wet and still and clung to them as they stretched and looked around.   In front of them were a few huts made of sticks and mud.

“Here we are,” Professor Wilkerson said. She was an attractive woman in her early thirties.  She was dressed in a tank top and an ankle length summer skirt, and fashionable sunglasses, which she took off to reveal large blue eyes.  She was a popular teacher, both for her looks and her unique approach to history, but even she’d had trouble selling the idea of re-enacting slavery for a week during break.  It was understood by all that this was not sanctioned by the university.  She spoke with a southern drawl that made her seem even more feminine.

   “These huts symbolize your village. You’re now Africans, and this is your home until a party of Arab slavers kidnaps you.  Unfortunately we’ll have to skip over a few steps in the process that would ultimately bring you to the plantation. My family’s plantation, actually.  All around you, to the coast is old Wilkerson land.  And yes, my family made its fortune off the backs of black African slaves. And we kept our fortune by selling out the South when the Union occupied the area.  Like Scarlet O’Hara, the land has always been our first loyalty.  But enough of my unsavory family history. Here you will stay in equally rudimentary accommodations and work dawn to dusk.  Good times will be had by all.  Seriously, I would like to thank you all for volunteering to spend your break here, slaving away. . .” a student or two groaned, “No pun intended, of course.”  Professor Wilkerson continued.  “I think we will all have an extremely valuable learning experience.  The operative word being ‘experience.’ It takes a great deal of courage to try something like this, to experience, as nearly as possible, the lives of the past.  So, I salute you.  Frankly I think it’s good if your anxious right now, maybe a little fearful.  Once I drive away you guys will have to do whatever you’re told, by whoever tells you, or suffer for it.  Now, we collected all cell phones, snacks, sodas.  Nobody’s hiding a cell, or a pager, or a bag of Fritos, right?  Time to get yourselves in the mindset.  You guys are now Africans of the early 1800’s.”

Janice took Amie’s hand.  “This’ll be cool” she whispered.  “I’m so glad you came with me.” 

Amie was not a history major, was not even in the class, but her best friend Janice had talked her into it, and Professor Wilkerson had assured her that she would talk to the Chair of the Psychology department to get Amie some kind of credit. Amie planned to write a paper of the experience, something informal, perhaps humorous, about the presumption of white upper middle class college students pretending to be black African slaves for a week.  She hadn’t told Janice about the angle she wanted to take, because Janice was so earnest.   Alicia had expressed disappointment that no African Americans were with them, for they, the blacks, could have been the student’s overseers. Alicia was an attractive lesbian with short black hair who had come out recently, and was now filled with the fervor of the recent convert.  Kathy, another of the students, was active in women’s rights; also very liberal and earnest. She worked in the rape counseling center at college.   She wore glasses, was blind without them, she said. She was adamant that women shouldn’t be judged by their appearance and went to no trouble with her own.  It was an irony of nature that she had a voluptuous figure, with large full breasts and round hips.  When she got in the van her first words were that she’d started her period.  She said it loud enough for the men to hear.

  “I don’t know what slave women did, I guess just let it run down their legs.”

“Too much information,” Lisa said, rolling her eyes.

“Well, I guess I just don’t think it’s anything to be ashamed of.  I figure we’ll get to know a lot about each other over the next week.”

Lisa was very pretty and fit and looked like a cheerleader, which in fact she was.  Matthew was her boyfriend, and was on the cheerleading squad with Lisa.  He, like Amie, had been talked into coming along.  No one knew why Dylan had come.  He was a thin, pale, red haired young man.  He was in the class, but was not a history major, and for the most part kept to himself.  Amie and Janice were childhood friends and had shared many adventures, their first drink, their first joint; they had been on a double date when they had first been kissed.  They roomed together in college.  Janice was the loud one, more outgoing.  She dyed her hair blonde and had a pretty smile and was always optimistic.  She spoke her mind, sometimes without thinking.  Amie was quieter, more thoughtful.  She was by far the prettiest of the girls.  She had long dark chestnut hair and wide dark green eyes that had caused many a young man to stutter or forget what he’d been saying when she looked in his eyes.  Amie was not unaware of her effect on the opposite sex, but she had never been raised to think of herself as special because she was stunningly pretty.

  Despite convincing herself of the humor of the situation Amie couldn’t help but be nervous now that the long van ride was over, and she and the other students were at the plantation were they would be held in “bondage”.

A couple weeks earlier Professor Wilkerson had made the parameters clear:  “We’re going to try to re-enact slavery on an antebellum Southern plantation as nearly as possible.  You will be poorly fed and clothed, worked hard, and punished as the whimsy of your overseers dictate.”

Of course they all wanted to know what the punishment would consist of.  Professor Wilkerson had answered, “Physical restraint, such as the stocks or the pillory, or being bound with rope or shackles, to corporal punishment.”

“You mean, like whipped, or something?”  She was asked. 

“Have any of you actually even been spanked?”  The professor asked.  “Never mind.  More like spanking.”  She laughed.  “Just now I wish I had a mustache, so I could twirl it like Simon Legree.  Of course safety is our first concern.  No one is going to get hurt. Obviously you’re not actually slaves, but the object of the exercise is to recreate the experience as closely as possible.  That will require a little fortitude from you guys.  And the signing of certain legal documents absolving me of all responsibility.”

That had brought a laugh at the time.  Now Amie looked around at the others.  They were quiet, listening to Wilkerson, and sneaking looks at each other and at the huge moss-hung oaks surrounding them.

“Alright then, ladies and gentlemen, I shall now leave you to the tender mercies of the Arab slave traders who should be attacking and burning your village momentarily. As you guys say, ‘see ya, wouldn’t want to be ya.’”

With that, Professor Wilkerson drove off.

“God, she’s hot,” Matthew sighed.  Lisa punched him in the arm. “For an older woman, I mean.”

After a few minutes Dylan, asked, “So, what do we do now?  We just wait for the slave traders?” 

“You in a big rush?”  Matthew asked Dylan.  And continued, “Anything to eat around here? I sure could eat something. Let’s check out the huts. Giving up the phone’s one thing, but why couldn’t we bring something to munch on?   No Pepsi, no chips?”

“I’m sure they stocked the refrigerators before we got here. “  Lisa said.

They loitered for a long time.  They checked out the huts.  They talked desultorily.

“Do you think Wilkerson forgot about us?  I’d really like to get something to eat, even if it is just, you know, corn mush or something.  In fact, I wouldn’t mind a big steaming bowl of corn mush right about now.” Matthew said.

“You might have to wait on that,” Lisa said.  She pointed.  “I think that’s our Arab slavers now.”

“No shit,” Matthew said, spotting three figures moving through the trees in front of the cabins. “Are they carrying guns?” The other students looked at the “slavers,” as well.

Suddenly several large dark men came up behind them.  The figures Lisa had pointed out were soon upon them also.  Four of the men looked the part of ruthless, greedy slavers.  Their faces were dark and cruel, their beards greasy, They smirked at the students and spoke in a language the students didn’t recognize.  It sounded something like Spanish, but harsh and guttural.  They stank of unwashed bodies and rotten teeth.  They handled their guns casually, pointing them at no one in particular. Another two men held cameras, one a camcorder, the other an expensive digital still camera.  They circled the students, apparently getting reaction shots.  One of the men was relatively well dressed and groomed.  He was the leader, for he was ordering the others in that strange language.  The men with the guns motioned everyone to the ground.  The students looked to each other in confusion and fear, and dropped. Quickly several of the slavers were among the students, pulling their wrists behind their backs and binding them with leather thongs.

Amie didn’t resist when the smelly man stood over her grunting a command.  She put her wrists behind her and winced as they were cinched tightly.  She gasped as her elbows were drawn together.  Then her ankles and knees were bound as well.  She cried out in surprise and pain as her wrists and ankles were drawn up and bound together. 

“Okay, okay, that’s enough,” she cried as she was left helpless and arched in a painful hogtie. “Please, it’s too tight, it hurts!” She looked up into the lens of a camera.

In answer the man jerked her jean skirt up to her waist and smacked her on her pantied butt.

“Oh!” Amie shouted in shock. “Stop it!”

The man responded by jerking her panties down to her knees. He smacked her again, harder. And pulled her hair back, forcing her into a severe arch.  His face in hers, he yelled at her, jerking her hair, holding her in the arch, his spittle hitting her in the face and his fetid breath causing her to gasp in revulsion.  He let go of her hair and let her drop.  The others had been served much the same way, and were glancing at each other for reassurance, as the photographers circulated among them busily taking pictures.

“Dude,” Matthew said, to no one in particular.  “This is fucked up.”

         The men had finished binding the students. They moved away from the small helpless group and talked among themselves, joking and pointing.  The only one who hadn’t been bound was Lisa.  She had been held by one of the slavers while the others hogtied the students.  Now the leader interrupted the other men and spoke to the students with a commanding voice.

“Look,” he said in a slight, though unidentifiable accent.  “You are slaves now.  You’ll do as you’re told.”  Then he pointed at Lisa.  “You strip.”

The video photographer spoke to the leader, as he hurried over with his camera.

The leader, a bit exasperated, repeated himself after the photographer put the camcorder to his shoulder.

“You’re slaves and you’ll do as told.  Strip.”

“Um,” Lisa said, “Am I supposed to have lines?  I don’t know my lines.”

The man slapped her across the face.  Lisa would have fallen but for the slaver gripping her arm and jerking her upright as her knees buckled.  Tears sprang to her face.

“Stop it!” she cried.  “You hit me!”

The leader pulled a gleaming curved knife from his waist. Like the guns, it was not a prop, not for play, but a well cared for weapon.  From the slick grace with which he drew it, it was obvious it was an old friend.  He held it unselfconsciously, without apparent menace.

“Hey, fuck you, asshole!” yelled Matthew. 

Immediately one of the slavers flipped Matthew on his side and kicked him in the belly.  Matthew grunted in agony.  A wooden wedge was forced into his mouth and bound behind his head.  His face was bright red and his eyes bulged as he fought for breath.

“Stop it!” Lisa demanded.  “That’s enough; what are you doing?  This is bullshit! Untie them now! And put away your weapons and those stupid cameras!”

“Excuse me! Guys!” Janice cried from were she was hogtied on the ground. “We’re students of Dr. Wilkerson, okay? And I think things are already getting a little out of hand. If we could just turn it down a notch? I know we all signed up for this, but you could’ve really hurt Matthew over there, and I’m sure that’s not what Dr. Wilkerson wanted!”

Amie’s wrists and back hurt already, and she’d only been bound like this for a few minutes.  The shock and embarrassment of being exposed from the waist down and having it recorded on camera was now receding into the burning ache of her strained position and bound arms and legs.  She closed her eyes, trying to calm herself.  Janice’s appeal brought her back to reality. 

“Oh God, please, get me out of this,” she thought desperately.  She had a very bad feeling.  Janice’s words, rather than calming her, were making her sick with fear.

Several of the other students’ voiced their outrage now as well of the men’s treatment of Matthew.

The leader turned his attention from Lisa and smiled at Janice.  He gave curt orders, and one of the men cut the cords binding her and walked her over beside Lisa.

“I don’t think you understand, I mean what I’m trying to say is that I don’t think Dr. Wilkerson would find this appropriate,” Janice said. “We all realize this is supposed to be about the experience of slavery, but I think the guns are really unnecessary.  And you don’t have to hit. . .”

The man interrupted her with a command. Two slavers grabbed Janice’s arms tightly.  The leader held the blade of the knife flat against her cheek.  He pressed the index finger of his other hand against her lips, the universal sign for silence. He began cutting her clothing off.  Janice hardly dared to breath as the blade glided through the material of her shirt and bra, and down through her pants and panties. He cut down the length of her sleeves and pants legs.  The fabric fell away as he cut, exposing Janice piece by piece until he had cut away all her clothes. After they’d made her step out of her clogs the leader spoke again to the two men holding her.  Janice had not resisted, fearing the knife, trying to remain calm. The other students had watched riveted in stunned silence as Janice was stripped by the knife. She did not resist when they bound her wrists in front of her.  But then one of the men gripped her thumbs.  Her voice quavering, she asked “What are you going to do?” 

That broke the spell and the students began pleading or demanding to be let go.

They bound her thumbs tightly together with a leather thong and positioned her below the thick overhanging branch of a large oak.

“What are you doing!” she cried.

  They tied another rope to the thong wrapping her thumbs and threw it over the branch.  Janice now lost her composure and began to beg and cry.  Slowly they hoisted her by her thumbs until she stood on tiptoe, crying and pleading with them.

“Oh my God!”  She screamed, “You can’t do this! You’re hurting me! Oh, please stop, let me down!”

Her pleas were answered only by the jeers of the slavers. Once again the man with the camcorder was in the thick of the action, filming from all angles.  One of the slavers took a leather whip and began hitting Janice across her buttocks and back.  He methodically whipped her, leaving livid red stripes across her pale flesh.  Her pleas became screams as he continued mercilessly.  The camera men scurried back and forth, recording all they could.

“Now you,” the leader said to Lisa, “Strip.”

Lisa’s mouth was dry with fear and she trembled as she took off her clothes.  When she was naked and barefoot the fork of a tree branch was placed at her neck, and a bolt pushed trough holes in either end of the fork, trapping her neck.  This was the “goree” or slave stick that slavers frequently used to coffle slaves. It was essentially just two forked branches bound end to end so there was a fork at either end.  The tips of the forks were drilled through so a bolt could be placed through the holes, trapping the neck of the captive. The slavers had brought several gorees, rope, leather, and a couple of yokes, heavy oaken boards with holes for the neck and wrists.

Lisa was forced to kneel, with the long end of the goree behind her.  The slaves untied Alicia, and after making her strip, and binding her wrists again behind her they stood Lisa up and placed Alicia front to back behind Lisa. The other end of the goree was secured around Alicia’s neck.

Janice had lost all composure as the man continued to whip her, her howls and cries were piteous as the whip snapped against her bare skin.

Kathy was untied and forced to strip next.  She stood naked, or so she thought, but she’d forgotten to take her glasses off.  A slaver cuffed her violently on the side of the head, and snatched the glasses off, threw them down and stamped on them.  Then they noticed the string dangling between her legs. Unceremoniously a slaver pulled the tampon, dark with blood and clots, out of her vagina and dangled it in front of her face.  He said something to her, and then, as though inspired, tied the string of the tampon into her hair.  Kathy started crying from the pain and shock when the man hit her.  They paid no attention, just took her to the line and trapped her neck in the goree.  Amie thought she was next, but they came for Dylan, standing him up and stripping him before he had a chance to offer any resistance.  Then it was Amie’s turn.  Her wrists and back ached when they unbound her and she gasped as they manhandled her to her feet.  She stepped out of her skirt and panties, and offered no resistance as she added her tank top and bra and jewelry to the pile in front of her.  She stared straight ahead as she stripped, trying not to think about what she was doing or what was going to happen next. The men hooted as she stripped.  Her body was stunning, round, full breasts with pink nipples a slender waist, delicate, flaring hips and a round firm ass.  Her legs were long and shapely.  Her skin was pale, for she didn’t sunbathe, and her complexion smooth and creamy.  Naked, she was led to the coffle and stood behind Dylan, the fork of the goree quickly placed around her neck and the bolt driven home.  Since she didn’t have a “partner” her wrists were bound to the shaft of the goree in front of her. The end was tied to the bolt behind Dylan’s neck, so she would have to follow in coffle. Almost in reverence, if such a man could experience the emotion, the slaver ran his hard, dirty hands over her breasts, hefting the soft flesh in his palms, and rubbing her nipples between his thumbs and forefingers.  He breathed heavily on her neck. Cupping one hand over her vulva he pushed her ass against his groin. She groaned, appalled and sickened by the groping.  The leader saw him and yelled a word at him.  Begrudgingly he slid his finger along the slit of her sex, and pinched her nipple before releasing her.

While captives were prepared, the slaver finished whipping Janice with a few especially vicious strokes across her breasts.  Her back and butt were crisscrossed with welts.  Her calves trembled as she tried to stay on tiptoe to take the pressure off her thumbs.  Her short blonde hair was stringy and wet, and lines of sweat ran down her body. She was nearly hysterical with pain and humiliation. Her breasts shook as she gasped and cried and writhed helplessly. Two slavers cut her down, and untied her wrists and thumbs.  They then put a heavy yoke over her shoulders.  When her wrists and neck were placed in it it was closed and locked. She was pulled to her feet, and led to the coffle where a staple in the front of the yoke was tied to the bolt at the back of Amie’s neck. They hobbled her ankles with a length of rope so she would have to shuffle quickly to keep up.

Matthew’s clothes had been cut off before the slavers untied him.  They didn’t remove his gag, but yoked and hobbled him as they had done to Janice, and roped him in line. 

Now they were ready to move.  The leader gave a command and one of the slavers grabbed Lisa’s right nipple and pulled.  She cried out in pain and started walking.  The coffle jerked as the others tried to get in step.  They stumbled as they forks jerked their necks, but the road was flat and no one tripped or fell. The slavers talked and made comments as they marched, occasionally slapping at an ass, or grabbing a breast.

For Amie, as for them all, this was a nightmare.  She was more frightened and humiliated than she had ever been.  She had seen her best friend tortured; there was no other word for it.  Even now poor Janice was shuffling along behind her, weeping and groaning.  Amie’s heart went out to her.  And she and the other girls had been stripped and groped by these animals.

They walked for hours in the heat and humidity.  Soon they were all dripping with sweat, and the horseflies and gnats and sand fleas found them, tormenting them with their incessant buzzing and stinging. The photographers had gotten all the pictures they needed for the time, and walked along beside.  Amie wondered what they must look like, six naked people joined by sticks around their necks, hands bound, and another two locked in heavy yokes, shuffling along behind. She hoped someone would see them and call the police; some hunter, some hiker, some moon shiner, anyone.  She knew the possibility was remote. They were walking on little more than game trails, and they had come miles down dirt roads to get here.  They were in the backwoods.   She cursed herself for agreeing to this; her only consolation the unworthy one that the friend who talked her into it was suffering far more than she.  When these so-called slavers were done with them they would talk to Dr. Wilkerson, oh yes, and let her and the college know in no uncertain terms what had gone on.  Amie remembered a psychological experiment that she had studied, the Stanford prison experiment, where college students were assigned jobs as guards or prisoners in a makeshift prison in the basement of the psychology department.  The experiment had to be stopped because the guards had become abusive.  Amie assumed that something of the kind was happening here.  These men, whoever they were, had exceeded their instructions.  Hanging someone by her thumbs, whipping her brutally, that couldn’t be permitted.   Someone grabbing her ass, binding her, forcing her to strip, that was a clear violation of any possible academic exercise. And filming it all like it was some bondage porno?  She shook her sweat-stringy hair to shake off more gnats and flies.  Her neck was being galled by the fork stick and bolt, and sweat stung the developing sore.  Amie decided she was going to sue.  Her anger helped quell her fear.  All she had to do, she decided, was get through the next few hours, until they were turned over to the Professor.

But getting through the next hours was not going to be easy.  Besides the bugs and the heat, and the irritation from the goree sticks around their necks, or the yokes in the case of Janice and Matthew, they had not had anything to eat or drink for hours. 

After walking miles the slavers stopped so they could take a break. They found a shady spot near a small creek, leaving the exhausted students to stand in the sun.  Some of the men drank greedily from skin bags. Alarmed, Amie realized it wasn’t water they were drinking, and she didn’t think it was raspberry Kool-Aid.  They were drinking wine.  If they got drunk, would they be even more brutal?  It was not a pleasant thought.  Only the leader did not partake, he stood aloof from the other, coarser men.

“Excuse me, please Sir, excuse me,” Lisa said. “I have to pee.  And I’m really, really thirsty.  I just wondered if we could get something to drink, please?  I know we’re slaves and all, but I’ve got to get something to drink and to clean myself up a little, please.” 

The slavers spoke among themselves as though they hadn’t heard.  None of the other students dared say anything. The leader spoke to a couple of the men.  They sauntered over to the coffle and removed the bolt from the forked stick, freeing Lisa’s neck. 

“Thank you,” she said. “I’m really not trying to piss anyone off.  I’m really not trying to make trouble.”

The two slavers gripped her upper arms and marched her to the leader.  He looked her up and down and then stood.  He motioned the camera men over.

“You thirsty, slave?”

“Yes, sir,” Lisa said. “And my friends are too.  I mean the other slaves are too.”  She looked nervously from the men to the cameras, and hunched her shoulders, as though to hide her nakedness from their eyes.

He said something to the two men at Lisa’s side.  They forced her to her knees.

“Well, if a Slave is thirsty, then a slave should drink,” he said, and worked his erect cock from his trousers. 

Lisa’s eyes widened and she struggled to rise.  The men kneeled on the back of her calves, and jerked back her hair.

“No,” Lisa screamed, “No, don’t you dare!”

The leader pulled his knife and laid it against Lisa’s throat. 

“You’re going to get your drink.  If you bite me, I’ll cut your fucking head off.”

Lisa gritted her teeth and shook her head.  The leader tapped the knife point against her lips. 

“Open your mouth, or I’ll cut it open.”

Lisa’s eyes were tightly closed. Tears welled up under the lids and trailed down her sweaty face.  Slowly she opened her mouth.

A slaver took the leader’s knife and held it to Lisa’s throat as the leader put his well manicured hands on either side of her face and pushed his cock into her mouth.  She gagged desperately.  The man withdrew and spoke angrily.  The slaver not holding the knife twisted Lisa’s nipple viciously.  She screamed and cried.

“Oh please let go! It hurts it hurts!”

He let go, jerking her hair in emphasis.

“Alright, alright.” She said despairingly

Once again the leader took her by the face and forced his cock into her mouth.  He adjusted her lips, telling her what he wanted, and started to stroke in and out.

The two men at Lisa’s side chuckled and talked to her, one still holding the knife to her throat and gripping her hair, the other caressing her small firm breasts and gently twisting and pinching her nipples.

The students in coffle turned their faces away in utter dismay. Behind them Matthew cried and cursed through the wedge gag.

The leader took a long time.  He would bring himself near climax, and then back off a little.  The men joked and yelled encouragement.  Finally however the primal urge overcame his formidable control.  He gripped Lisa’s ears with his fingers, squeezing her cheeks violently in his passion, thrusting deeper and deeper and faster and faster and faster until with an animal grunt and agonized gasps of pleasure he unloaded himself into her mouth.         

He pinched her lips together as he withdrew, and held them closed forcing her to swallow.  Both camera men were eagerly getting close ups of her face.

       “Ah.” He said, “Now you know what slaves are made for.”

       Lisa stared back at him.  Her eyes were blank.

       He shook her by her pinched lips.  She winced with pain.

       “You’re not thirst any more, are you?” he said.

       This time she shook her head no.  The leader spoke to the men at Lisa’s side.  They pulled her to her feet and took her under a tree bough.  They threw a rope over the bough and tied it to her bound wrists.  Then they hoisted her arms up behind her until she was on tiptoe.  They forced her to open her mouth and gagged her with a thick stick, tying it so that it stuck obscenely straight out of her mouth.. She cried and mewled from the pain in her shoulders.  The men left and returned shortly with thin branches cut from a live tree and whipped her. Sometimes they hoisted her completely off the ground by her reversed arms and let her dangle like that, and brought her inch by inch back down so that only her toes could find purchase on the ground.  They whipped her as they had Janice, the thin flexible branches leaving livid welts over her back and buttocks and thighs.  When they were done they let her dangle in strappado, toes scrabbling for the ground.

The men, drank some wine, and ate some food, and talked among themselves as though they had not a care in the world.  Finally a word of the leader stirred them into action. 

       They brought Lisa down, but rather than putting her back in the coffle, they took the yoke off Janice and placed it on Lisa.  Janice took Lisa’s place in the coffle.

       “Any other slaves thirsty?” the leader asked.  “No?  Then move.”

       The girls couldn’t help crying as they walked, but it earned them nothing but a slap on the ass or a vicious pinch.  No one dared ask for a rest stop, they simply eased their bladders as they walked. 

       After interminable hours another halt was called. The students now felt nothing but dread. And their dread was completely justified. It seemed to them from the way the slavers looked them over, and talked among themselves, that they were like sharks smelling blood. A feeding frenzy was about to begin. 

A couple of the slavers spoke to the leader, pointing at a deadfall.  The two camera men spoke with the leader as well, and they were joined by two other men. They all spoke to the leader in turn, seriously, as though matters of state hung in the balance.

After speaking to the leader, and apparently getting his permission, the first two went to the fallen tree and cut some stakes from thick branches. They pounded the stakes into the ground in front of and in back of the deadfall.  It was not a very large tree, perhaps a couple feet in circumference, and branches under it supported it at about waist height. The two slavers hacked at the branches with machetes, quickly clearing a length of trunk.    The students looked on in fear and dismay.  After what had been done to Lisa and Janice, they had now some idea that these men were not playing by the rules. 

       They came for Dylan and Matthew.  Matthew was strong and agile but he had no chance.  The larger of the two slavers threw a leather loop around his neck and choked him.  Matthew’s face turned bright red, his eyes bulged, and he sank to his knees.  Immediately the man had the yoke off him, and had his hands bound in front, as Matthew struggled to catch his breath.  He was led, still hobbled, to the deadfall where his ankles were tied to stakes.  Both men pulled him over the deadfall, and lashed his wrists to the stakes on the other side. Together they prepared Dylan the same way.  Matthew grunted through the gag, Dylan was in a state of shock. Overcome with fear he didn’t resist in any way. 

The two slavers proceeded to bugger the young men, much to the amusement of their friends.  Both victims screamed in pain and humiliation as their assholes were penetrated.  Both thrashed and writhed against the pain and outrage.

       When they had finished they whipped Dylan and Matthew across their backs and butts, laying it on as hard as they could, raising welts and cutting them so the blood ran down. The young men wept helplessly, bound across the deadfall, wanting nothing more in that moment than to die.

       The two cameramen picked Kathy out of the coffle.  They escorted her to where they had prepared four stakes in the ground and stretched her tightly spread eagled between them.  Menstrual blood had streaked the insides of her thighs and darkened her labia. She pleaded and cried as they fondled her heavy full breasts and bit and sucked at her nipples.  She cried out and struggled and twisted as much as her stretched position allowed when the first man mounted her.  He didn’t have a great deal of stamina and was soon spasming his lust into her.  His friend pushed him off and mounted her in turn.  She cried to God and Jesus but they were deaf to her pleas.  She stopped fighting as the second man raped her.  He slapped her and pinched her nipples but Kathy had retreated inside herself and found a core of cold hatred.  She knew from her rape counseling that it was all about control and fear and she wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction any more.  That is, until the first man started pushing splinters under her toenails.  Now Kathy shrieked and bucked and writhed much to the satisfaction of the man on top of her.  He came explosively, grunting and gasping like a wounded bear.  Not wishing to risk her mouth, they wiped their bloodied cocks off between her breasts.

For an instant Amie’s heart was in her throat as another two looked her over, but the leader called at them and pointed to Alicia.  They freed Alicia from the goree.   She stumbled, falling to her knees, and pleaded with them. They cut a thick branch, and after tying her wrists to her ankles in front of her they pushed the branch under her knees and over her arms. They suspended like that about waist high in what was called a “parrot’s perch.” They began whipping her ass and the backs of her thighs.  Alicia shrieked and writhed under the assault.  They gagged her and continued, whipping her on the soles of the feet as well.  She mewled and gagged as they beat her.  She lost control of her bladder, the urine splashing down in front of the men, causing much hilarity. Then each man in turn raped her, brutally thrusting into her as she swung helpless in the perch.  When she fainted from the pain, they didn’t take her down, but left her suspended.

When they all finished they shared long drinks from their wineskins, as though satisfied from hard work well done.  Then they made a small campfire and cooked a meal.

Alica returned to consciousness, and finding that her agony was not a nightmare, that she really was suspended, tightly bound in a miserably uncomfortable and disorienting position, began to wail and choke.  From her position spread eagled on the ground Kathy wept quietly, determined not to make a sound.  She too was lost in the nightmare, in shock, not knowing how this could be happening.  Desperately hoping that she would wake up and it would all be gone.

The three students in coffle, Lisa, Janice, and Amie, had all sunk to their knees as the men raped and abused their friends.  They were too sick at heart to cry.  Amie was filled with dread and fear.  She was the only one who had not been abused like the others.  She didn’t know how long that would last, or what they would do to her when it was her turn.  The fear eating at her gut had long ago overwhelmed her anger.  She knew that there would be no lawsuit against Wilkerson or the college.  She knew she would be lucky to escape with her life.

The sun was well down and the sky was darkening when the men stirred themselves.  They brought Alicia down from her perch and, as she could barely stand and walk, half carried her, half pushed her back to the coffle.  One gave her an almost friendly swat on the ass as she stood too exhausted to weep.  They untied Matthew and Dylan from the deadfall and placed the yokes on them.  Kathy too was placed back in the coffle.

       Once again they moved out.  This time the walk was short, no more than half a mile when they started walking over soft ground, and hearing the muffled rush of water.  They had been led to the bank of a tidal river.  Had the tide not been high the boat would not have been able to come so far into the river, but there it was, looking to the students like a rust bucket of an old fishing vessel.  The students were taken to the end of a pier to which the boat had tied up.  The slave sticks and yokes were taken off one by one, and they were shackled with wrists behind them, and forced onto the boat.        

       From the darkness of the cabin the figure of a woman emerged.  The leader approached her, took her in his arms and kissed her hard on the mouth. His hands searched her body and groped her shamelessly. While he squeezed her breasts the woman murmured, “I’d like to speak to them. Jose.”

       As low as the voice was, the students recognized it.

       “Hello, everyone,” Professor Wilkerson said.  “You folks probably feel like I owe you an explanation.  I know you’ve had a long exhausting walk, and I’m sorry about that.  It’s the land, you see, my family land.  Long story short, my fiancé, Jose, and I have been doing some business with people who are in drugs, and, I’m sorry to say, got a little behind with them.  Jose came up with this idea and thought maybe if we could arrange it, then our debts would be squared up and they wouldn’t have to take title to my land.”

“I don’t understand,” Amie said. “Arrange what?  What have you arranged with them?”

“Well, they agreed that if I could arrange to give them some slaves; you know, you guys, then we’d be even.  And you know, it’s not the first time my family’s been involved in the slave trade.  It’s the land.  We’re not going to lose my family’s land.”

With that, the lovely Professor Wilkerson linked her arm with Jose.

“You can’t be serious,” Janice croaked. “Oh, you fucking bitch, you can’t be serious.  This is no game anymore.  Do you know what these fuckers have done to us?”

“Jose, please,” Wilkerson said, putting a restraining hand on his arm as he took a step toward Janice. “Watch your mouth,” she said. “We could have you flogged to death.  No, this is no game.  I don’t expect you to understand it.  I don’t know why I wasted my time telling you.  After all, you’re slaves.  Jose my Darling, please take them below.”