Рот Уайт - 400 Days of Oppression

I smelled the boiled yams that, along with the occasional pot of horse beans boiled to a mushy pulp, had become my regular source of sustenance. In my hunger, even this repulsive gruel sounded appealing. Even with my bowels threatening to give way, my hunger was winning out. At least it meant he had not forgotten me.

I took stock of myself, suddenly self-conscious and embarrassed, as I lay there quivering and sweating, struggling not to urinate in my little pine box. I felt disgusting. I didn’t want Kenyatta to see me this way. I wished I were allowed to take a shower, curl my hair, put on some makeup and lingerie like I used to do when we had first started dating. I wanted to be pretty and clean for him.

I whimpered aloud when Kenyatta’s footsteps descended the basement stairs. I felt like some ridiculously loyal dog, eagerly awaiting the return of the master who whipped and kicked it. The silly little bondage games I’d played with my past lovers had done nothing to prepare me for this. I’d been exploited and abused by men before. Anonymous men who didn’t give a fuck about me. This was different. This was the man who was supposed to love me, the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. I was in way over my head, but it was too late. If I backed out now he’d never marry me.

“Oh God, baby, I can’t take this! I’m freaking the fuck out! I feel like I’m going to throw up,” I cried.

I strained against the lid of the casket, tears weeping from the corners of my eyes, hoping Kenyatta would hear me and hurry to my rescue. Hoping that if I sounded pitiful enough he wouldn’t have the heart to continue this madness. The safe word went through my mind again and I toyed with it, wondering if I could say it. Wondering how bad things would have to get for that word to lose its repugnancy. I mouthed the word but refused to say it out loud, realizing with some dismay that I never could. Even though it was the only way my life would go back to normal, there was no way I was going to say that disgusting word. Just thinking it made me feel guilty. Of course Kenyatta knew from the start that I couldn’t say it. That’s why he had picked that particular word as our safe word. A word that stated quite clearly that I had rejected him. A word that would end our relationship forever. He knew that I’d die in that damned box before I’d say it.

When Kenyatta opened the lid of the coffin, I almost screamed. He stood there staring down at my nudity as I curled up, trying to hide my wretchedness from his eyes. I hated him seeing me like this. But that was the point, wasn’t it? It was the only way I would ever understand.

He switched on the keyless light, little more than a bare light bulb attached to the trusses above our heads, and one hundred watts speared my retinas, unbearable after nearly ten hours of solid darkness. I recoiled from it, temporarily blinded, but more ashamed than anything. I knew how I must look to him, naked and unwashed. He continued to stare down at me as I squinted against the glare. He smiled and my heart felt suddenly lighter. Then his voice boomed, loud and stern.

“Come out of there. It’s exercise time.”

Oh God. How can I exercise with my bladder about to burst?

He sat my meal of boiled yams and rice down on a stool and picked up a small talking drum and a stick.

“Get out of there now! Dance!”

He began to pound the drum. If I didn’t dance he would go for the whip soon. I had no choice but to obey. I crawled from my wooden casket and lowered myself unsteadily to the concrete floor. My stomach lurched as the casket wobbled and tilted, spilling me out. My legs shook and the room reeled as if everything were still swaying back and forth. I fought to maintain my balance and quiet the dizziness as I stood before him drenched in sweat and blood. Soon the room stopped swaying and the nausea in my stomach lulled into the dull ache of hunger.

I stared at the floor, afraid to meet his gaze, forbidden to, but wanting so much to see his beautiful face and finely chiseled body. Kenyatta was an impressive physical specimen, six foot six with thick striated muscles coiled like pistons beneath his ebon skin. His head and face were clean shaven, and smooth, and his strong jaw, high cheek bones, and intense black eyes gave him the look of African royalty. He was the very definition of manhood to me and I adored every inch of him as I had proven on many occasions, as I was proving now by enduring his terrible lesson.

I had lost a lot of weight in the week since my ordeal began. I knew that Kenyatta preferred me thicker. My hips were smaller now, my breasts and thighs not quite as heavy. My ass, which had been perfect for Kenyatta’s tastes, had dwindled away to nothing and I was embarrassed as I stood before him. His body was still perfect.

I began to dance, trying to shut out my urgent need to pee. The drumbeat pounded through me as I gyrated my hips and stomped and wiggled and clapped. I was not a very good dancer and this was one of his favorite humiliations for me. Maybe if he had put on some country music. I knew how much Kenyatta hated country, but I could have done something with a little Toby Keith playing in the background. Maybe an old school two step and a twist. That drum playing alone like that was hard to get into, especially when I was hungry and needed to piss. Kenyatta called this exercise, but I knew it was just another way to further degrade me. I was grateful when he turned the hose on me.

“Keep dancing!”

I danced in the cool spray from the hose and I urinated freely, hoping the water would mask what I was doing. It didn’t work. Kenyatta turned off the hose, stood, and slapped me to the floor. I know, I’m starting to sound like the abused trailer trash wife again. But I liked it when he slapped me…usually…when he did it during sex. But not today, when I looked like shit and I was all miserable and hungry.

“That’s not sexy, Natasha. Now dance again without the water sports.”

I started crying again. This was so much harder than I had ever imagined it would be and it had only been a week. One week of constant torture. One week of unending insanity. There were still three hundred and ninety-three days left to go in my lesson. I was tough. I could make it. My life had been hell since I could remember and I’d survived it. I’d survive this too.

I know men like Kenyatta…yeah…black men, think that pretty white girls like me have easy lives. But that’s bullshit. My life ain’t never been easy. I grew up poor. I grew up abused, and I’ve been abused by men in one way or another ever since the first time I let that Indian boy from the reservation fuck me in the back of his daddy’s truck. I was twelve years old and it wasn’t the first time I’d had sex, just the first time I’d consented to it. It didn’t make it any better. He was no nicer to me than the others had been.

Kenyatta finished hosing me off and then I was ordered to stand there and drip dry. The chains were heavy. It made standing difficult, especially with all the weight I had lost on my diet of beans and yams. Despite the oppressive heat down there, I began to shiver. Finally, Kenyatta tossed the plate of food at my feet and watched as I greedily scarfed it up with my bare hands. He had reduced me to some undignified animal, but I could not hate him. I knew his people had suffered far worse at the hands of my ancestors. He was quick to remind me how much worse it would be if I were sharing my cramped quarters with six-hundred others, breathing, sweating, and defecating in the same dank humid air I was inhaling. Lying spooned together so tight that some suffocated from the sheer press of bodies and others died of dysentery and malaria. I knew he spared me these horrors out of no kindness on his part, but only due to the impracticality of trying to get another six-hundred slaves to willingly submit themselves to the ordeal I had volunteered myself for.