F Campbell - Margo

It seemed a tremendous contradiction to the chained girl, this being seated in a luxurious carriage with a wealthy woman to whom she presumably belonged. Marcia had carried on the conversation in the most light-hearted fashion, and some of it was difficult to believe, but that which happened now was terribly, wickedly real.

Marcia waved her hand again and said, to the coachman, "Good enough, Jacques. You can let her off here." Wondering, the new slave allowed herself to be helped from the carriage by the grinning, blackattired man. His grin might cover sympathy or animosity. She could not tell. But he reached up for her and secured from inside his own seat a coil of rope at the sight of which the slave girl's heart sank. She was sure it boded her no good. In this she was correct. Jacques made a noose and slipped it over her head to draw it snugly around her neck. He tied thee other end at the back of the carriage and allowed the coil to fall upon the dust. His advice was good: "It's best that you don't stumble or fall down, missy. And don't you hold back none, you get yo' pretty neck broke. Don't you worry yo' little head none, missy. I ain't gonna make them horses trot. We goes nice and slow, and saves yo' pretty neck. It ain't all that far."

Shame and dignity! Never in her life had Margo felt it as she did now. The hemp was unkind around her neck. She gathered a handful of rope in her chained hands to give some protective slack. The carriage started and Margo took her first unfettered steps toward the enslavement into which she had just been sold. Her flogged back throbbed beneath the hot sun and the pebbles hurt her feet. But she followed in meek obedience behind the elegance of Marcia Tremont's carriage. There was little traffic and fewer pedestrians. But what there were examined her only with an idle curiosity, mostly prompted by her good looks. Bad it not been for that, she would have been just one more slave girl being taken to the fields.

Marcia had referred to the estate at "Tremont". They did hot go first of all to the house. The carriage had been directed to go through the farmyard and slave quarters before taking the mistress to her front door. It did not take the chained girl trudging at her rope's end very long to guess why. She suspected her mistress had arranged a reception for her benefit alone.

The whipping post bespoke its evil purpose. A naked black girl stood facing it, her arms raised, her hands bound tight against the wood. She was obviously waiting. Her back was, as yet, unmarked. The next exhibition was equally simple and even more graphic. Two posts a dozen feet apart joined at their top by a massive beam. From the beam hung two black girls bound by their wrists, their toes just tantalizingly above the soil. They hung taut and stretched in obvious weariness. They were as helpless and vulnerable as maiden flesh could be. Those going about their duties in the yard paid them scant heed. But Margo viewed them in horror and dismay. Marcia was teaching her a lesson by example. Once again, she had a terrible vision of herself hanging as these girls hung. The lovely girl in the carriage had only to give an order and this would happen. Once more, Margo shivered beneath the hot sun.

If Tremont punished its male slaves, there was no evidence of such intent. Within a well-trodden square stood a massive pillory and an equally massive set of stocks. Each held a girl. Each girl was naked and showed evidence of standing or sitting where she was for a long time. Dejected, hopeless eyes raised from their imprisonment to watch as the carriage passed. But no girl pleaded for help or mercy. Every line and muscle of their lovely nudity told merely they expected neither. Their next stop was the smitty. Margo was strangely glad of its existence. It meant that her chains could be stricken off here rather than far distantly in the town. But there was no striking out of chains today. Instead, it was the familiar ritual of seating and the raising of her legs to the anvil. But this time, even Margo herself conceded pleasure in what was being done. The manacles the smith now fitted upon her ankles were most definitely feminine. They were not of a common iron, but of chased metal she could not name. The linkage between them was long but light. She realized it would constantly be in her way as she walked, but it was infinitely better than the close, heavy hobbles so recently struck from her feet. The rivets by which they were closed upon her flesh were more subtle but nonetheless secure. Only a blacksmith could cope with them. They would defeat any girl or the strongest man.

Marcia had watched the flesh ironing with amusement and a tremendous pride of possession. She would have the girl washed and cleansed and given a proper hair styling by her own personal slave. The girl seemed tractable and might not need a period in the cotton fields to break her in. She had a quality of intelligence but promised to be interesting. But for very sure, she must be given no chance of escape.

"Can you walk?" she asked brusquely. "Show us."

Margo could walk, but she must proceed cautiously. Walking was difficult, and running was impossible. She would be a slave, well constrained. The jingle of the links would never let her forget what she had become.

"I can walk," she admitted shyly, "but only slowly. I hope I please you."

"You'll please me better when you're dean, child. Come, let us get you to the bath."

The black maiden who shyly attended her was immensely competent. The girl wore scant clothing and some of her revealed flesh indicated she had been whipped at a not too distant date. But there was no use alluding to such things. Margo allowed herself to be ministered to and every part of herself cleansed. The black girl tenderly applied lotion to the angry-looking weals on her back. She clucked in sympathy.

"You been flogged, missy. Ah knows what it's like. Don't you ever rile Miz Marcia, she be real good with the whip, she whip a girl in the damnedest places."

It was always the same. The ever-present whip! Margo realized it had become a part of her life and something she must keep forever in her mind. This would be her function from now on – to please both usefully and carnally to avoid the cutting of her flesh with the leather thongs. The thought was foremost in her mind, and now as she walked into the pleasant lounge where her mistress waited. Every step she took evoked metallic music. She found her chained hands awkwani to dispose of. She dared not use them to cover her new nakedness. The sheet had been taken and not replaced. Evidently, Marcia wished to once again examine what she had bought. Margo stood, humbly beseeching approval but respectfully silent, while gay young eyes searched every crevice of her being.

"Come closer, Margo. Separate your legs. I want to look at your pussy."

In her past, now gone forever, Margo would have indignantly refused. Even after all her exposures during this dreadful day, she was still hesitant and shy about baring her most intimate secrets. She could do nothing about her breasts. They asserted themselves of their own accord and were allowed no covering. But that which nestled in coy shame between her thighs was something else again. She had kept it inviolate. But there was about Marcia an authority undeniable. Margo clinked forward until her knees touched those of the seated girl. She spread her legs, and for a full measure of obedience, clasped her chained hands behind her neck. All of her was visible and available to the avid young woman whose property she now was.

Marcia was not satisfied to simply look. A pert young hand reached within the revealed crevice to feel to knead and pinch.

"It's a lovely little cunny," she said enthusiastically. "I don't see why you are so ashamed of it. It's neat and tight and trim. All right, you can close your legs again. And since you are already standing, you may as well serve the tea. Chloe has just brought up the things. You may serve me and then yourself. You will drink yours kneeling before me while we talk."