"Next case," said the judge, bringing her gavel down.
Arthur was led in with four other males from his locality, their hands and legs shackled in a line. The high-tech collars around their necks prevented speech and punished any sudden moves. He knew he must stand still and face what came to him. He could neither resist nor bring himself to care. What was the point?
"Your honour," said the males' court-appointed representative, "these five males have been diagnosed with slavery-denial disorder. Each is deeply submissive but cannot reconcile these desires with the rest of their identities, which has led to a variety of psychosocial offences and significant depression. Each -"
"Are they immigrants from patriarchal worlds?" interrupted the judge.
"Correct, your honour. Each came here when their worlds were torn apart by war and strife, but each has failed to integrate. The state requests the court to order two years' slavery for each male, without sexual or other limits, based on the following evidence ..."
Arthur tuned out as the detailed case histories were read out and questioned by the judge. One male was released into the ownership of a female friend who came forward to claim him – she would be charged with improving his wellbeing and in return, she gained a no-limits slave. Arthur could tell from the way she eye-fucked her the man that she had one main use in mind for new piece of human property.
They came round to his case. Arthur knew he was a sexual submissive, knew that were men and women who lived the life he fantasised about daily, and it surprised him not one jot when the representative read out the list of desires he'd revealed under the truth drug. It didn't mean he wanted to live them twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Did it? Sure, it was frustrating, seeing all those people – well, sort of people, slaves really – living just the life he thought about. But he'd still tried to make his own way, like he'd been taught on his homeworld, never asking anyone else for anything, never relying on anyone else, never needing anyone else.
A report from his doctor followed. A classic case of acting out based on patriarchal patterns of learned behaviour, she called it. The suggested cure: slavery to a dominant woman for a defined period. They made it sound like Arthur had been preposterously unreasonable not to accept this diagnosis and immediately submit to a collar and leash.
What about how unreasonable they'd been, taking control of his nanites the last time he'd been for a checkup, immobilising him then making him a ward of the state? A ward, at twenty-five. He was his own man, no one's ward. The sadness, the frustration, the pain – they were his to live with, weren't they? If it meant a few other people around him got hurt, well that was just life. Wouldn't the judge see that?
She would not, and if he was honest with himself, neither did Arthur, who was beginning to see that in this world of dominant women, his bravado meant nothing at all. Arthur was led before the judge, who peered down at him as he was held firm by two female guards who stood to either side of his chained body, their grips tight around the fabric of the jumpsuit that was all he now wore. Their power made his skin tingle even as he hated what they were about to do to him.
"You are hereby accepted as a ward of the state until such time as you may be judged ready to be sold as a slave. In accordance with your need to learn new, healthier patterns of behaviour, no limits are set upon your slavery, other than a period from date of sale of no more or less than two years. You may look forward, boy, to a happy time living out your desires as a ... remind me, representative, what type is this one?"
"A petmale, your honour. Specifically a puppy."
"My favourite – my husband-slave is a petmale, don't you know. Boy, you will live as a petmale for two years. Guards, remove this male's clothing and chain him on all-fours."
The judge brought down her hammer, sounding the death of Arthur's existence as a free-male in a society that barely tolerated such a thing. Arthur struggled against the guards for the show of the thing, but they barely had to make an effort to control him, much to his embarrassment and the judge's wry amusement. Cool air rushed over his skin as a guard made the smart fabric of the jumpsuit split at the seams, and he blushed as she whisked it away from him, exposing him to everyone in the court.
The other guard knocked Arthur to his knees, and the jolt of pain as he hit the floor let him know she meant business. He got the message even more clearly when she took his balls in her hand and squeezed them tight, so that he would have screamed if the collar and his nanites hadn't muted his voice. His legs and arms were chained together so that he could only crawl, and then it was a simple matter for the guards to clip a leash to his collar and lead him out of the court and into the waiting transport van, where he was chained into a clear plastic crate.
From the inside of the crate, which would not yield to his kicks and thrusts, Arthur's eyes tracked around the van's interior, taking in the rows of trembling men and women, all victims of this world's insatiable appetite for slaves. The young female opposite caught his eye, then hers tracked down Arthur's body and she licked her lips and smiled. He looked down too – how had he not noticed he was so very hard?
