It all started with "welcome to the auction". Who would have known that four little words would alter my future forever? I had taken on this undercover work for my job at the newspaper. I believed in this noble prize winning article in the making. I found it hard to believe that there were people out there fabricating a black slave/ white master lifestyle. Sure I had read the red room books and seen the leather clad women on television, but this was a whole other level of crazy.
As hard as it was to believe when this all started, is as true as it would become. Not only were people doing this, but a lot of people, and they enjoyed it. Aubrey had initiated me into the auction and told me that my term as a slave would last a month. She said it so stone faced, like a month acting like a slave is a normal course of action. Standing on the precipice of the biggest decision of my life made it feel much longer. Seeing light eyes and pale skin just below the auction block had made it seem like an eternity.
This is the last day of the month, and it is the day I decide if I go home. My home isn't much, but it is mine. It would be the first mine that I would recognize in the last thirty days. I wanted to lie on my couch and eat my food, but there was something holding me here.
I think back on the first time seeing Shara's light brown face. Her height was overshadowed by her innocence. Even her jealousy had this innocent tone that I couldn't recognize in myself. There were so many things I hated about the smug jealous face, which always seemed to be around. I think it was me that I really hated. I came to love her in my own way. I would even come to make love to her, for Master's pleasure and my own. She was so soft beneath me that I felt like I was making love to a pillow instead of a woman. The wetness she garnered for me was genuine and nice. I would always remember her.
I think about being in the penthouse dressed as a movie star and feeling like a fatted calf. She was there then. The dress wasn't me and the straightened hair certainly wasn't me, but in a way it was. She had reassured me that it was what Master wanted and surprisingly, that was enough. I had seen myself as beautiful for the first time ever. With someone else seeing me as beautiful, I was able to look at myself through different eyes.
Beautiful wasn't my only feeling though. The nerves coursing through my veins as I was presented to who would be known only as Master nearly crippled me. There he stood, Master, a titan of a man with cold green eyes and graying hair. He was completely aware of himself and aware of me. Even when he would talk to me about the fact that he wasn't enough for me, those words just added to his awareness. He could move heaven and earth if he wanted to.
Nothing about Master was conventionally sexy, but ever thing about him was commanding. The way he wanted me played daintily in my loins. It still does. It frightens me and stills me all at once. I am water around him. He is stone.
I remember the first time he called me, "stupid little nigger girl." I had blushed at the truthful words. Only a stupid woman would put herself in the position that I'd gotten myself in to. He said he would wash me from head to toe that night but I had to wait until many nights later. I had waited too, on bated breath, I found myself waiting a lot. The anticipation would build within me like a second orgasm.
One night he came to my room. He didn't speak. He just went to the bathroom and drew me a warm bath. When I slipped my foot inside that water, it was almost an awakening. He helped lower me into the tub my breasts were above the water where he took a sponge and slowly washed each one, careful of the chocolate nipples. Every tingling touch of his thick fingers relaxed me. My chocolate nipples seemed much larger mirrored by the still water.
"You are so dark," he purred continuing down my stomach and almost to my thighs. He liked to make me wait before he would touch my sex. My whole body blushed red underneath him. We had broken down the barrier. I could be myself around him.
"Do you want to join me?" I don't know why I asked him but he did. I could see in his eyes that he did. I became accustom to being used for his pleasure. I'll never say it aloud, but it was my pleasure to serve the white man.
He strips his clothes off and shares the extra large tub with me as he pulls me close against his wrinkled flesh. The fact that he is aged only added to the effects of me being submissive to him. I would spend days wondering about him and how he came to be this man. I would wonder if he ever loved someone who was as dark as me. I wondered about his wife that night, and why she wasn't enough for him. He is careful not to cum inside me, and I know I'm not enough for him. Maybe, no one is enough for him?
Reminiscing, I think about the tobacco smells that will never come out of my hair. Master liked to smoke and I was privy to each delicate whiff of him. Even the bath didn't wash away his smell. His smell is engrained in me now. He toys with me. Sometimes he is gentle and sometimes harsh. He seemed to really feed off my fear.
Being chained to the bed after the warm bath is only as euphoric as the dreams that haunt me. I think about him, never letting me go. The chains tighten around my wrists as he takes a feather down along my abdomen. He is watching me squirm.
He says he can't live without me and somewhere deep inside, I believe him. I want to be the only one, to one person, one time in my life. Master makes me feel like I'm the only one as he stares with his green eyes. I know I'm not however because he still refuses to cum inside me.
I see his eyes and I see other eyes as well. There are his wife's blue eyes and his child's eyes that like Master stare at me knowingly. Master is a man of mystery, and he doesn't leave much for my investigation. Instead he interrogates with his eyes. He watches me with his eyes.
One more set of eyes I will remember if I choose to leave here, his brother Michael. His eyes the same as Master's with much deeper intent. He willed me in a way that no man should ever will a woman. He watched me, as I masturbated on the bed for him. He lavished in the way that I didn't really want to defy my Master. Master is a word that relates to so many people right now. I could choose to run away with Michael, but only if he let me.
I have love for them all. It is the weird kind of love that sometimes people develop for their captors. The love I have for Shara makes me really start to think about myself and the way I have been affected by this journey. There have been punishments, rewards, and I have barely gotten enough information for a column, let alone and expose'. I'm damaged and healed all at the same time. I think a million thoughts, but the night is just beginning. I will make my choice in the morning.
At nine p.m. I'm brought to Master's bedroom. Someone else brings me. She is a tiny black girl that I've never seen before. I have no room for her, so I don't wonder about her. Instead I'm happy to be asked to the presence of Master. I've only caught glimpses of his room before, so standing inside this colorless room, I start to really take it all in. Master really likes the muteness of it all. There is nothing in his room that would distinguish him from any other white male of the south. He has no color. He likes to be able to choose to add people as decorations instead of items. For now, I am his artwork.
"You have a big decision tomorrow," he says beckoning me to his placid four poster bed, "I'm afraid that tonight won't make it any easier for you."
I still. Nothing he has ever done has made something easier for me. I stand in the middle of the room feeling far from easy.