F Campbell - Margo

Margo had thought often of the slave block. It was a fantasy she shared with many, and a fate awaiting the unwary. It took but a small excuse to place a maiden or man thereon. When Margo's turn came, she was trembling and it was a warden who picked her up bodily and carried her up a few steps to stand her in the eyes of the small multitude ready to bid. She surveyed them without shame. She had done nothing of which to be ashamed. Shame became a reality when the sheet was stripped away and she stood naked for their approval. The bidding was sharp and determined. She was seen as a prize. Few girls of her quality reached the block.

Margo stood there, naked. She fingered her chains while the bids mounted. She was knocked down to a Mrs. Marcia Tremont for a sum of money to stagger the imagination and was immediately taken to where settlement was made. Mrs. Tremont elected to have the ankle chains taken off her new acquisition but insisted on the retention of those confining the slender wrists.

The smitty laughed at her woebegone appearance. "We puts them on and we knocks them off. It didn't take long, now did it, deane? Hear ye sold for a good price. Ye are a beauty, ye are, lass. If I had the gold, I'd buy ye myself."

"But if 'tis Lady Marcia Tremont who's purchased ye, then surely ye'd best prepare those pretty lips to work upon a pretty cunt. You'll not be working any fields, unless ye be a bigger fool than ye look. Now up with them pretty legs, and we'll get the iron off them."

It was daunting to the new slave to watch the tremendous force of the hammer blows required to drive the rivets from the shackles about her ankles. It told her all too clearly that the chains remaining on her wrists could well be there for life unless someone returned her to this place. The leg irons fell away and she stood, but without any sense of freedom. The links between her hands hung heavy across the now soiled whiteness of the sheet, which was still her only covering. She did not walk to Marcia Tremont's carriage. The smith picked her up bodily and carried her out, and surprisingly tossed her onto the seat opposite the waiting lady.

The two girls, one rich and widowed, the other stripped and chained, stared at each other in silence, drinking the situation in with a furious speculation until the more fortunate of the two waved a languid hand for the coachman to commence their journey. Her questions were crisp.

"Have you ever been whipped?"

"No, never – until today. Today, I was most cruelly flogged."

"Flogged?" She leaned over to inspect the whipped back without comment and replaced the white covering over the shrinking nudity indentured to her for five years.

Margo nodded dismally. "Aye, blood. I fear it stained the sheet before those in the big cage tended me."

Marcia laughed. "Well, at least your education has begun. It'll save me a lesson. A girl who hasn't been well whipped or properly flogged is not much use to anyone." She eyed her purchase shrewdly, focusing on the chained hands and then the unchained ankles.

"Have you any idea of escape? Most girls have. I'll warn you now: I'll whip it out of you."

"I haven't even thought of it," Margo said truthfully. "Everything's happened so quickly, and I've been hurt so much. I'm just frightened. I'm not thinking about anything properly."

Marcia nodded. She was enjoying the power she had over this girl who, except for an accident of marriage or birth, could have been herself. She gained a vicarious thrill from picturing herself where Margo sat now. Marcia Tremont had no illusions about her own sexuality. She gloried in it. She intended to enjoy herself to the fullest extend possible with this girl after she had got her home, where she could be kept naked and properly dealt with. Her next question was like the firing of a gun.

"Do those pretty lips of yours know what to do between a lady's legs?"

Margo was not shocked. "I've heard about it, and once I played with a girl I knew, but what you really mean is still strange to me."

"Good. You're a virgin. I'll train you. By the time I'm through with you, those pretty lips will be honey sweet with my secretions. Do you understand that?"

"Yes, I suppose so."

Margo looked at her chained hands to examine them and exhibit them to the girl on the other side of the carriage.

"I have been made a slave," she confessed in dull misery. "I am sure there is much for me to learn. I do not wish to be whipped again. I'll do my best."

Marcia laughed gaily. "The church folk got you, didn't they? Well, they haven't got you now. I've got you now. I've got you for five whole years." Again her laughter pealed.

"Ye should feel grateful ye weren't bought by some beetle-browed old bastard who'd have fucked you before he got you home, and then put you in the fields the next day."

"I am grateful – really I am. I will try to please you."

Marcia cocked an amused eye. "I've got fields too. Have you ever worked in a field all day, under the hot sun?"

"Never."

"Well, there's worse things, you know." The young, wise eyes became serious in retrospect. "Once, long ago, I tried it myself. I wanted to know what it was like. I figured it would be useful information for a girl who one day might own her own plantation." She shrugged and grinned.

"It most certainly was. Have you heard of the quota?"

"Isn't it where someone has to pick a specified amount of cotton or suffer a penalty?"

"Well, you know about it." The youthful widow held up an admonishing finger. "You'd best remember it. If you ever get out in my cotton fields, the overseer will see that you do your stint, and you'll be whipped like a black if you fail." Once more came bright laughter.

"But they only put a girl in the fields as punishment, and you're not going to be punished, are you?"

The inference was plain. The sly hint all too clear. Margo shivered beneath the sheet. For all her youth and beauty, Marcia Tremont might well be as ruthless as a man. She would know best how to hurt a girl. Uncaring of the answer, she politely asked, "By what title do you wish me to address you… madam?"

"My, my, how formal! I don't like madam, and I don't much care for being Mrs. Tremont. Mistress sounds like a school teacher, and a school marm I most definitely am not. For the time being, just call me Marcia. I'll call you Margo." Once more the sly grin. "That sounds sweet – two girls together, but only one with a whipped back. I'll not be sending you to the Beadle or the overseer if I want you whipped. I'll do it myself. Have you ever had a child?"

"Good gracious, no!"

"Don't sound so shocked. Slave girls often do. It seemed tome that to have you made pregnant by one of the blacks would be about as bad a punishment as I could contrive. I've had a few girls like you, but I could never quite bring myself to do that. Maybe you'll be the lucky one to carry around a black pickaninny for a few years."

Margo was unsure. Her companion might well be joking. The fate mentioned was too horrendous to even contemplate. But its utterance made the chains upon her hands weigh doubly heavy and seem twice as tight. She had a sense of life closing in upon her, and it was a life she did not wish to leave. She had been taken from what she previously knew, and in the space of little more than hours, had become a slave. The only bright spot in her firmament was the youthfulness of her new owner. Surely Marcia would not be too cruel.

The young widow read her thoughts. "You're wondering what I'll do with you and how cruel I maybe, or on the other hand, how kind. I could be kind, you know. You don't have to look at me with that frightened little-girl look you've got on your face right now, and by the way, let me warn you, don't ever be sulky. That's one thing I can't abide – a sulky slave."