(This story is set in a world where legalized, non-hereditary slavery is commonplace for serious crime, unredeemed debt, or voluntary self-indenture.
All characters who are enslaved or have any intimate/sexual contact with slaves are 18 years of age or older
. This is fiction; no one should ever be deprived of free will nor used sexually without his or her uncoerced permission.)
Up until a few hours ago, I had been Wally Haniford, former slave wrangler and computer installation contractor. Three months earlier, I had unintentionally seen Hugo Hernandez, youngest son of drug lord Matias Hernandez, murder another drug smuggler in an otherwise deserted office building. That had put me into the federal Witness Security Program, but after Hugo's trial ended with a hung jury, someone had leaked information that blew my hiding place. Three deputy U.S. marshals had died trying to protect me. The last to die had pulled a Hail Mary play, giving me both a gender-conversion pill and a point of contact that would help me self-indenture myself. The idea was that no one would expect a male computer geek to hide as a female slave.
If this wasn't freaky enough, the Marshals' Service emergency contact to help me self-indenture was the best (platonic) friend of my youth, the beautiful and brilliant Eleanor Jane Hastings. Eight years before, I had been horrified when called upon to process E.J., as I always called her, into slavery for medical debt (her mom died anyhow). This experience had caused me to quit my job at the Longhorn Slave Market and develop another career. E.J. was free now and based on her clothes and apartment seemed to be doing quite well. Fortunately, the gender pill had changed my hair, body, and even voice so much that she would not immediately recognize her buddy Wally. For her safety as much as mine, I had to ensure she never realized who I was, so that the Hernandez cartel did not connect the missing witness with the secret love of my life.
Ellie [I was determined not to refer to her as E.J.] welcomed me into her home; as soon as she had locked her door, she gave me a gentle hug "because you look like you need one."
"Yes, Ma'am," I agreed.
"No need to be formal," she replied, giggling. "Look, unless your pursuers catch up with you, you can plan on spending two nights here regardless of what happened afterwards. Do you like pizza?"
She produced a large pepperoni pie, which again brought back fond memories of time spent with her in the past. I soon realized that my new, smaller, female body could no longer consume large amounts of food, so I stopped after two slices and some diet coke.
Silence hung in the apartment for perhaps a minute, and then Ellie hesitantly raised the problem that had brought me to her door.
"You wouldn't have contacted me if you weren't a witness on the run," she began. "Please DON'T say anything about your identity or the case that brought you to WITSEC--you wouldn't be here if there wasn't a security breach. I'm also guessing that you were not born as a woman."
"Is it that obvious?" I asked.
"Not really, but there are certain gestures that young girls learn, gestures you have to make automatic. For instance, women rarely sit or lie down with their legs apart; they tend to sit straight up with their shoulders square and knees together, take very small bites of food and sips of beverage, and so on. Most long-haired women also automatically brush their bangs behind their ears, several times every minute, so they both see and hear better." She was trying to help me survive, so I attempted to change my posture and handle my hair as she had suggested.
"First things first--we need to give you a new name, social security number, and identity." Thirty minutes later, I had a Texas driver's license that said I was Susan J. Twinning and had been born on 02/26/20XP, which chopped three years off my actual age. She also gave me a smudged Social Security card with the appropriate name and a new number, explaining that the original Susan and her family had died of Covid at age 9. These cards should stand up to casual checks, including being run through a police data base, but I needed to memorize the place and date of birth, parents' names, and so on.
Ellie took a deep breath. "Now we come to the really hard part: what do you want to do next? Any credit card or bank account might lead pursuers to you, but if you want, you can stay here two nights and I'll give you two hundred in cash plus buy you a bus ticket out of town. We can also work on your 'girl lessons' so you can blend in better. I assume that WITSEC told you the alternative, right?"
I grimaced. "Yeah, enslavement."
She put a hand on my wrist. "Believe me, Susie, I get it. I was indentured for three years and it was horrible even though I had a best friend who helped me through the slave market process." Since she was talking about me--Wally--as her best friend, I barely restrained the urge to tell her who I really was. Instead, I melted a little inside.
Although she offered to let me think about it overnight, I realized that enslavement was the "least bad" option if I wanted to survive, so I told her I would do that. She appeared relieved that I had taken the rational alternative, but I cut her off by a further question: