Sherry's Sanctuary -

Sherry's Sanctuary

Foreword

Before beginning the story, there are writers that I need to acknowledge. Slavery stories are not new. Joe Doe Stories, Gentlemanmariner and Carl Bradford have set the stage and developed many rules of slavery that have been aopted by most. For example, Slave Yoga is a concept used by most who write in this genre, as are the standard positions such as "Present" and "Display". Their stories, however, paint a rather dystopian future, mostly for women.

But GamblinLuck took these ideas to a new level. His

Slave Camp

stories created a world in which slavery was not only realistic, if still abhorrent, but he also took it beyond the titillation of turning women into sex crazed maniacs. When I first read

Slave Camp

, I was immediately intrigued by the way he not only showed slavery as a judicial punishment, but he added the aspect of hope to the slaves lives. He has continued these ideas in

Gotta Pay the Piper

and

My Mom Owns Me

. Within these, he developed a world in which there were rules to slavery and there were stiff penalties for those who did not follow those rules. But more importantly, in most case the slaves actually had hope for a better life, both during and after their enslavement. He also introduced ideas of automatic manumission from slavery at age 65, slave estates, and developed the concept of collars to a more realistic idea.

GamblinLuck's characters, however, are what truly stand out. These were not the mindless slaves or sex starved women commonly found in other stories. His characters had history, had feelings, and most importantly all had different reactions and methods of dealing with their enslavement. CurrentParameter has also started writing in this universe and has shown the lives of owners and slaves from different perspectives. All their Slave Camp stories revolve around the characters.

I was intrigued by the psychology of those who endured enslavement, as well as those who owned slaves. GamblinLuck touched on the issue of counseling in all three of his stories in the Slave Camp universe. I wanted to look into this idea more. I have exchanged e-mails with GamblinLuck, and he kindly allowed me to play in his universe. Even more graciously, he has allowed me to bring in some his characters from his stories. For this I will be eternally grateful.

I have classified this story as "Non-Consent" due to its central theme being slavery, however I need to be upfront that if you are looking for "fap" material, this is not the story for you. While I will be covering many sexual issues, the true purpose of this story is to delve into the mindset of both the slaves and owners.

As a counselor, I began to think about how the counseling field would handle slavery being legalized. How could one provide counseling to a person who had "no civil rights and very few human rights"? How would the profession approach basic counseling rules, such as confidentiality, sexual relationships, and most of the major ethical guidelines with a population that was not entitled (by law) to have the right to any of these?

That idea grew and I began to add to the idea. What if the main character was a staunch opponent to slavery but ended up having a lot of slaves themselves. These ideas morphed into this story. For those who have not read GamblinLuck's stories, those both in the Slave Camp universe and his other writings, I strongly recommend them. He does a better job of describing his world than I ever could. That said, I realize some of the timelines will not completely align with those stories, and I may have made other mistakes integrating my story into his world. These mistakes fall solely on me, and I apologize to GamblinLuck in advance.

I also need to give a shoutout to Velcrofist. His stories

Casey's Fall, Casey's Rise, Emily 2.0,

and

The Saltadora

were the first stories I read on Literotica, and stand as some of my all-time favorites. I want to give credit to Velcrofist for two ideas I have incorporated into this story. The first is Simon's speech pattern. This was inspired by his character Joe Bloccato's speech pattern and is a tribute to that character, though taken to the extreme. Also, the chapter titling I use is a direct homage to his titling in

Emily 2.0

. I want to thank him for introducing me to this site.

Finally, I have taken some literary license with certain aspects, specifically recovery time for addictions and various physical injuries. I absolutely realize that recovering from addictions, brandings, and other issues take much longer than I set forth in this story. The acceleration of recovery is solely to provide movement in the story.

Please remember, this story is not to written to titillate but rather examine slavery from a different angle. I hope I don't disappoint too many of you.

==================

Chapter 1- Mother

My name is Claude Breaux, and I truly hate how our country has given up its values and embraced slavery. Judicial slavery has only been established for about forty years, but the amount of harm it has done is immeasurable. I could go into all the reasons, logical arguments, debates, and propaganda associated with our new system of slavery, and to be honest I do kind of agree that there have been some benefits to the system. Still, the question of if the benefits outweigh the harm is very clear in my opinion. It does not. That is why I find it hard to believe I own a large number of slaves today.

Now before everyone starts screaming at the hypocrisy of my opening statements, please bear with me as I tell my story. I do understand that most of the country believes in the institution of judicial slavery. Hell, the common belief of "if a person commits the crime, they should do the time", existed long before slavery was reimplemented. To prevent overcrowding of the prisons, (and let's be honest, provide more taxable opportunities for the government), judicial slavery solves a lot of problems. Crime is down, victims are able to get some compensation for themselves, and most believe the system works. That is except when it was a family member or close friend who was enslaved. Losing a family member to slavery can have horrible repercussions. I should know, it happened to me. This is my story. The only request I have is for you to listen with an open mind. At the end, I will accept whatever opinion you may have of me.

============

To begin, and I apologize as this will take a while, I should tell you about myself and how I ended up in this situation. My childhood, especially my teens and early twenties, are essential for understanding where I came from and why I have the beliefs I do. I came from a rather wealthy family in Louisianna. We were "old money" or "generational wealth", and all my immediate family had reasonably large trust funds. These trusts were originally established by my grandfather. He was a firm believer that a man's worth was his ability to make something of himself. "Pappy" set the trusts up so all our college educations were covered, but we would see no real money until our 25

th

birthday. My father was a strong believer in this philosophy. My older brother, sister and I were expected to already be established before we had access to such a large sum of money. Many times, my father would give a speech to the three of us while sitting around the dinner table.

"Having a lot of money, but no power, is useless," he would begin, looking each of us straight in the eyes. "Setting yourself up as a leader will prove more valuable than all the money in world. All you need to do is look at all those other trust fund babies who just sit around partying, doing drugs, and basically living a hedonistic lifestyle. Are they comfortable? Sure, but can they affect any real change? Can they command the respect of others? Are they happy? They may think they are, but most are just surrounding themselves with sycophants who will leave them when the next best thing comes around."

I must admit that while I did not agree with the need for power, I did agree with the idea that we should be able to support ourselves, with or without the trust funds. But that is where my father's beliefs stopped aligning with my own. While I did not share most of the ideas that were firmly ingrained within my family, I was smart enough to keep quiet about it. At least for a while.

My brother and sister, fraternal twins Jason and Sherry, were seven years older than me. By the time they went off to college, both were firm believers in my father's philosophy. Jason chose pre-law, while Sherry was pre-med. I was eleven at the time they went to college and was suddenly the center of attention in the house. Over the next three years, my parents devoted their time to ensuring I was going to be set up for success.

My father made it his mission to install a "strong work ethic". Getting good grades was a must. I could face strict repercussions if I brought home less than an A. Sports were another important factor for my father. He had been a very solid basketball player throughout high school and college. He believed the teamwork shown in sports built a foundation for future success. I was not cut out for most team sports, but did have a love of swimming. While the teamwork was not as strong as I would get in a sport like football or basketball, I was good at it, and he did admit it was not just a solo endeavor. We may compete individually, but we were a team. Work was another important factor. Even at eleven he believed we needed to work. There aren't many jobs for a skinny eleven-year-old, but every weekend I was out mowing lawns, caddying at the local country club, or doing odd jobs for friends of the family.

My mother, however, was not as concerned about my work ethic as she was about my ethical development as a person. On my thirteenth birthday she sat me down alone in my room and told me, "Your father has it half right. Money without power IS useless. But power without compassion is tyranny. You only need to look at where this country is heading to see this. There are so many powerful people right now that have no compassion nor empathy. They make the laws, manipulate the laws, and hand down punishments with no regard for the long-term effects. This new judicial slavery is a mess. They played upon the fears of the nation, implemented a system that conformed to mob mentality, and just publicized the successes. They don't care about the abuse, just the power they have gained. I'm not just talking about politicians, lawyers and judges. Doctors are creating full practices just around slavery. We are seeing whole industries being created around this. Slave markets are making a killing, accounting firms have all started to have new divisions that deal specifically with these 'slave estates', and just about every other profession has found a way to capitalize on the new laws. And you better believe that at every turn the government is finding a way to tax and get their share of this new wealth.

"What I am trying to tell you is that the more power you obtain, the more empathy you need. Power is a responsibility. Those in power have the responsibility to protect those without. Unfortunately, more and more in power see it as their duty, even their right, to rule over those without power. Do you understand what I am trying to tell you?" I told her I did, but if I am being honest with myself, I didn't truly understand for another year.

Looking back now, this conversation with my mom was her attempt at some kind of redemption she was trying to achieve for herself. I loved my mom, and to this day I still believe she was one of the kindest, most generous souls to ever walk this planet. But she felt she had failed her kids. She saw how my siblings were embracing power. Even in their junior year of college, they were already on the fast track to become very successful. They were top of their respective classes, belonged to all the important and prestigious clubs, and were looking at graduating early. Jason had already scored very well on his LSATs, and Sherry had just taken the MCATs. Their scores were high enough that they could pretty much pick their choice of law and med schools. However, every time they came home to visit, I could see my mother becoming more and more distressed at the "type" of person they were becoming.

Even at my age I could see that they were becoming more and more self-centered. To them, they were born to shape the future. They were the chosen ones to dictate how those "below" them would live. It was their "right", based on their hard work. I believe with all my heart my mom tried to instill a sense of empathy and compassion in them, but I think they just bought into my father's belief too strongly at that time.

About six months after that fateful conversation with my mother, she became ill. At first it was just a few headaches and dizziness. After a month of increasingly debilitating headaches, she went in for a CAT scan, and we discovered the tumor. The actual diagnosis was glioblastoma multiforme. While mostly seen in older men, it can occur in all age ranges and both sexes. Unfortunately, it is very aggressive and has an extremely poor prognosis. Within six months, just before my fourteenth birthday, I was standing with my father and two siblings as we watched the casket slowly lower the only person I truly felt connected to into the ground. I felt like my soul was being lowered right alongside her.

============

Each member of my family handled the loss of my mother differently. Jason seemed the least affected. While he appeared to mourn the loss of our mother, he returned to school the day after the funeral, and that became his sole focus. While he was cordial to the family, he made it his mission to never let himself become vulnerable to anyone. I found out later that her death had shown him that caring too much for someone is a weakness. And to him, any weakness was a threat to his power.

My father was devastated by my mother's death. I don't think he ever really knew how much he depended on her when she was alive. Without her, he was lost. He had already started turning over more and more of his duties in his shipping business to his Chief Financial Officer. This itself was not a big surprise as he had been preparing for retirement for a while. But when my mother died, he didn't care about the company much anymore. No, instead of work, there were only two things he concentrated his attention on, finding the bottom of the next fifth of bourbon and making me into the man he wanted me to be. When he wasn't drop-dead drunk, he was riding my ass to be "better". Better at what? Better at everything. An A on a test was not good enough if I missed some questions on it. Swimming, which I loved, became a misery. Every race must result in a "personal-best". And that "personal best" needed to result in a first place. Anything less was not acceptable.

Sherry had the most dramatic reaction to my mother's death. She suddenly took much more interest in me. As I said, she was on track to graduate a semester early, but she made sure to come home every weekend to be with me and my father. At first, I thought she was worried my father was going to screw up the inheritance, but after the fourth visit I realized that was the furthest thing from her mind. She was coming home to make sure my father did not corrupt me like he did her.

A month after my mother died Sherry came home for her usual visit. That Saturday morning, my father had gone out especially early. We didn't know why, but Sherry took the time to have a talk with me. Ironically, she took me to my room, and we sat in almost the exact places my mother and I had during our fateful talk a year earlier. As with the conversation I had with my mother, this one also would shape who I was to become.

"Claude," she began, with a sincerity I had never seen from her before, "I need your advice."

To say I was shocked would be the understatement of the century. SHERRY needed my advice? What could a 14-year-old kid possibly advise her on? She was everything my father had wanted us to be. Strong, already successful in school, on track to be very successful as a doctor. Hell, she would probably be running a hospital or clinic by the time she was 35. What advice could I give to her? I asked her that, and her reply shocked me even more.

"I'm going to do my med school in Baton Rouge."

That floored me. The med program in Baton Rouge was good, even great by many standards, but with her grades and extra-curriculars she had her pick of programs. We had all thought she would go to an Ivy League or another prestigious school. Jason had already accepted an offer from Duke for his law degree, and we all assumed Sherry would follow along. For her to choose Baton Rouge was not only a shock to me, but my father would flip when he heard that.

"Sherry, why would you do that? Putting aside the fact that you have so many better schools you could go to, Dad is going to have a stroke when he hears this. He expects you to graduate from the best. He isn't going to..."

"I know!!" she interrupted. "You don't think I know what is expected of me? You don't think that I know this is against everything he has beaten into our heads since we were old enough to talk?" she cried out. Then she started imitating my father's deep voice. "Power is Everything! Without power you are nothing! Second place is only the first loser! Blah, Blah, BLAH!!!"

I had never seen Sherry this upset. She had always seemed so in control. Her demeanor had almost seemed robotic in the past. I thought she was just like Jason, don't have emotions, and nothing can hurt you. I was about to realize how wrong I was.

"I'm doing this for Mom," she began with tears in her eyes, "and for you."

My mind was quickly becoming overwhelmed with what I was hearing. Why would she give up on a chance to be the best for me? I didn't even think she liked me much. My confusion must have shown, because she quickly continued.

"Did Mom have a talk with you about empathy being more important than power?"

I told her about the conversation I had with Mom before she got sick. Sherry nodded.

"She had the same conversation with Jason and I about 6 months before yours. She came up to visit us at college and took us both out for a really nice dinner. Afterwards, she invited us back to her hotel to talk and catch up. It was then she had the talk with us. I'm ashamed to say, neither Jason nor I took it well. To us it was just a bunch of liberal, bleeding-heart, snowflake bullshit. We even laughed about it over drinks the next weekend. But then she got sick.

"I never told any of you, but I started driving down and visiting her when she was in the hospital. It killed me to watch Mom waste away and realize I could do nothing about it. I felt completely helpless."

At that, Sherry could no longer hold back her tears and began to weep openly.

"I had never felt helpless before. I had my whole life planned and didn't fear anything, especially the future. But I never imagined the future would not include her! Suddenly I started to rethink everything. Everything Dad had beaten into us over the years, everything Mom had tried to teach us both verbally and through her actions. I started breaking down and crying every time I visited her."

Seeing my sister bawling in front of me was too much. I had no idea what to say or how to respond. I did the only thing I could think of. I stood up from the bed and walked over to where she was sitting. Looking at her, head in her hands, crying with more pain than I could imagine, I leaned forward and hugged her. I couldn't remember the last time we actually hugged each other. We would give the perfunctory three pats on the back type of hug, but this was different. She stiffened ever so slightly for less than a second, then wrapped her arms around me and squeezed me as tight as she could. I don't know how long I knelt by her chair with her crying into my shoulder and hugging me for dear life. I gently stroked her head and hugged her right back. Eventually she calmed down and slowly released me as she sat back. I sat on the floor in front of her, staring up at my sister as if seeing her for the first time. She breathed in deeply and moved to sit on the floor across from me.