When the revolution came, I saw in my naïve way a world painted in blues and in yellows. Colors of the new, lone party drifted off the massive flags that spread like raindrops through the city. I watched them dance in the sky as the coated the earth. They melted into the faces of passersby, ran through the streets and alleys. They dipped into the water we drank. No: they were the water we drank.
I knew the revolution must surely have wonderful things in store for me. I was a fervent, vocal party man, and always had been. When the recession had crushed many businesses and taken food from the mouths of babes, I had taken to the streets to put posters up. When the government's efforts to restore order failed, I staged rallies. When the troops were sent in, I fought. I deserved my place among the heroes of the revolution.
It had been difficult, too. For a great while there had been no response. Culture had been drifting back towards older times already, but some of the views we espoused were still too radical. His Excellency had confided in me then, bunkered in an old warehouse and living with rats, that it was all a part of his plan.
"The people will respond," he had smiled as he tapped his sternum, "when the people need to eat." Until then, we had to be prepared.
Sure enough, when the time came to move we were able to move faster and more efficiently than our enemies, and had swiftly gained power.
And now His Excellency was excellent, indeed.
Having served at his side early on, and been a foot soldier to the end, I expected my due rewards. Enemies of the revolution were being eliminated, but a great many less aggressive peoples were being taken for slaves. This, I knew, was where the real wealth would be found. Slaves were invaluable, if expensive. And their potential trades, from programming to metalworking to sexual servitude, were without measure. Allison and I made love often in those early weeks, expressing our optimistic vision in the only way we knew how.
Until Micheal came to talk to me.
Micheal had been my closest friend since grade school, and had actually been my introduction to the revolution. He had been one of the first to sign up, one of the loudest to preach, and had commanded troops in the brief fighting. If I was a laudable foot soldier then he was a short step down from being a general. And he was an important person now.
When his motorcade pulled up, Allison excitedly went to make tea. When he arrived, sans bodyguards in a display of trust, she hugged him. She'd known him almost as long as I. Besides, we were excited to see him. This must be the news we were waiting for. The news we'd dreamed of.
"I have," he frowned, "some bad news."
Bad news, indeed. It was the worst possible. Apparently (he told us), information had been leaked by somebody who wished to destroy us that we had attempted sabotage on several occasions and had been foiled but unreported due to our good standing with the venerable Micheal. It was false, of course, and Micheal knew that, but the damage was done. Orders had come down from the top that we were to be split up and sold as slaves. Immediately.
Allison broke into tears, and I held her. My guts liquefied.
"Can't you do anything about this?" I asked.
He sighed, looking above us at the picture on the cabinet that featured him and us on a vacation, some seven years back. "I've already done what little I can, all things considered. I delayed the sale for some time, to give you the opportunity to..." he blinked back tears.
I couldn't breath. "There's nothing....?"
He stared at me hard, and then wiped his eyes. "Jesus, Pete, it hurt me bad to do as much as I have. Every measure of good will towards you now is destructive to me. I..." he looked down, silent for some time. Fighting. "The truth is, I can save you."
"You can?" Allison looked up hopefully.
"Yes." He swallowed, hard. "It will be the end of me, to be sure. It will cost me everything I've worked for. And it will not be all that wonderful for you, either."
"Anything," she whispered. His eye twitched at that word.
"I hope you mean that, because I love you both...but you're asking more of me than any friend has the right to ask. More than I would ask of you."
"What will happen to us?" I asked.
"You'll still be sold as slaves," he admitted, "but for the sake of my position, power, opportunities and dreams, I can have you both as my property."
I smiled. "You can do that? We would live with you?"
"You would."
"And you can afford it?"
"I will still have a great deal of money, yes. And friends." He waved a hand dismissively. "There are some things that cannot be taken back, once given."
"Then this is great news! You had..." I stood up.
"Sit down," he stated flatly.
"What?" I sat.
He sighed, a darker look coming over him than before. "Your transference to my estate will destroy more than a decade of my life's work. I will not agree to this without stipulations."
Allison blinked. "But, you're our friend..."
"I am," he nodded, "or we wouldn't be having this discussion at all. But this is not just a matter of friends, I'm afraid. If I take you as slaves, I get no others. If I accept ownership of you, I have little else." Fear crept across my shoulders, again. Micheal had always been an ambitious, calculating, and lonely man. A good friend with a passion for what could be a strong nation, but above all ambitious and lonely. "In return," he continued, "you must know that the following will be fact: Peter, you will have numerous obligations and chores dependent upon my needs and whim. Basic housekeep, manual labor, whatever may be necessary. The jobs I might otherwise have been able to rely on other slaves doing."
"Oh....s..sure..." I stammered.
"Allison," he kept his eyes locked on mine, "will assist with my needs and will sleep in my bed."
"Wait just a goddamn minute!" I leapt up, fists tight.
"Micheal!" Allison went wide-eyed with indignant shock.
"Shut up!" he roared, and we faltered. I had never heard him yell, even in the heat of battle. "You are friends, and I'm no monster. I will not require sex of you, Allison. Not in so many words. You have...other ways...of assisting me. Soft hands. A warm mouth. I'm sure you can handle such chores. So long as you can accomplish these tasks to my satisfaction, you have no worries. You spending nights in my bed will have dual purposes: first, it will provide me with comfort and a feeling of intimacy. Secondly, if I should require your assistance during sleeping hours you will be available to me."
"But...why...." Allison moaned. "Why would you do this?"
I already knew the answer. Micheal had always been a lonely man, unable to approach women in an equal playing ground. Although of large frame and strong he was a nondescript man who bordered on ugly. A large gut stretched his midriff in spite of his physical exertions. He had counted on having multiple slaves to quench his desires, but was prepared to adjust in order to save us. I still wanted to hit him.
"Why?" Allison whispered again, leaning back while taking in the truth of her fate.
"Allie," he whispered, "there are some things we simply cannot do without." He looked so pained, then, that neither of us spoke.
We had to agree, really. It was either that or be split up forever. So agree is exactly what we did. Micheal informed us that we would be "collected and appraised" before delivery, and that we should be ready to go within the hour. We spent the time looking through our possessions...a lifetime of memory. Allison cried the whole time.
We were collected, indeed. Placed in separate vans, we were taken to a large building downtown. I don't know what Allison's experience was, but for me it was little more than a routine physical. Insignificant, but it still managed to make me feel like an animal to be evaluated for my ability to serve and survive.
Afterwards, I was left to sit in the evaluation room for nearly two hours before I was told to get dressed and be ready to leave shortly.
I was taken to a large compound just outside the city. Wide open fields of tall grasses gave way to a sizable front yard and a massive Victorian-style mansion. This, I figured, must be Micheal's new place. I noticed the black van that had taken Allison was already parked outside, and nobody was in it. My pulse quickened...I'd never been so eager to see and hold her. It must have been the humiliation and terseness of the examination, but it seemed like a lifetime since I'd held her.
I didn't get the chance then, either. Having been lead by large thugs to the front door, I was signed for by a well-suited assistant of Micheal's and lead to a small bedroom in the far side of the house.
"This will be your quarters," the man said briefly. His crisp suit was a poor match for the creased, greasy, porous skin that was his face, or the gnarled blocks that were his hands. "You will change into uniform immediately, and deliver your garments to the incinerator."
"The...the what?"
The loose, folded skin of his cheeks stretched into a smile. "Incinerator. Slave garments are required to prevent confusion on the part of visitors."
I looked down at my clothes...the only thing that remained of all of my possessions. "Oh. Okay."
"Upon completing this task," he went on as though he had never been interrupted, "you will report to the main kitchen for instructions on helping to prepare supper. Work will typically last you most of the day, as you alone are available to do the work that was meant for half a dozen. You will be allowed thirty minutes downtime at the end of each night, confined to your room, whereupon you may listen to music or watch television. Work ends at eleven, and lights are turned out at eleven-thirty."
"Wait a minute. Half an hour downtime? Confined? What's going on here. I'm Micheal's friend!"
He looked down his nose at me. "You are a slave, and you are going to want to get used to that."
"Why would Micheal give me a bed time, like a child?"
He wrinkled his eye-brows. "Your MASTER may well have been a friend, and may still be one, but he's also a man with a large estate to care for and a great deal fewer slaves than previously expected. You will have a lot of work to do. Understood?"
I looked around at the small, bare room. "Yes," I sighed.
"Then you have your orders." He turned to leave.
"Wait!"
"What is it, slave?"
I ignored the sneer on his face. "My wife..."
The sneer grew. "Your wife, slave, is with your master in his suites, and has been ever since she arrived some two hours ago."
He left.
The work was exhausting. There was not a moment to pause, to relax, or hardly even to eat or use the restroom. Nothing but perfection was good enough. My slave's attire, loose grey pants and a matching tank top that had a large red "S" on the front and back, was clearly made with this kind of brutal schedule in mind. I sweated nonstop.
By the end of the day, I had made supper and cleaned up afterwards, thoroughly cleaned several large rooms, moved some furniture into storage to make way for new purchases, and scrubbed every toilet in the large mansion.
Every toilet, that is, save for the ones in Micheal's suites. Those doors remained shut and locked, and nobody came out all evening.
In fact, nobody came out all that week. My nervousness and jealousy were at first calmed by exhaustion and nonstop work, but soon grew to eat at me like a cancer. I slept poorly, which was a bad thing in my line of work. What was going on? Why didn't they ever come out? Was my wife alright? What was she doing?
What was he forcing her to do?
I asked the suit-clad assistant (who would only allow me to call him "sir") about my wife. When would I see her? Was she okay? Could he get her a message for me? He always gave the same type of answer: "She is with your master right now," or "You have your jobs to do and she has hers." This last line stung especially hard, so he used it often.
