Subjection (10 page)

I was successful.

The rest of the silverware got dropped in at once, and I swished the bucket around a few times to make sure none were sticking together. I rinsed it thoroughly with water, dried the water spots and carried them back to the Devil Man, who was chatting with the other guards.

I stood silently, waiting to be noticed. They insisted that this was the “proper” way for a slave to get attention. Having my mouth taped shut once was enough for me to learn never to say “excuse me” again.

“What is it, slave?” the guard sneered.

I kept looking at the ground so they couldn’t see me roll my eyes. “I finished, sir.”

I expected him to be surprised, maybe irritated, but a naïve part of me wanted him to be pleased that the task was complete. While he would have to come up with something else for me to do, at least the task was done well.

He cuffed me, and I barely managed to avoid dropping the box.

“Quit lying!” he snapped, turning back to the other guards.

I felt my face turning red and I fought to keep my tone of voice quiet, calm, and submissive.

“I
finished
, sir.”

He turned and yanked the box out of my hands, causing me to stumble before I realized I should let go. I didn’t breathe as he pawed through the box, eyeing up the perfect, sparkly silver.

He glared at me. “How did you do this, boy?”

“I created a chemical mixture that removed the tarnish, sir,” I explained, forgetting for a moment that I wasn’t supposed to be bright or capable. “I got some cleaning supplies, and I combined—”

My words were cut off as I felt myself land on the floor, the strength of his blow knocking me off my feet. I curled up in a ball to protect my stomach as he kicked me a few times. Pain exploded as he grazed my kidneys.

“Get up!” I heard him shout over my head. When I didn’t move, he grabbed me by the hair and dragged me where he wanted me. “I’m gonna whip the defiance out of you!”

I tried to run along with his larger strides to keep him from jerking on my hair so much. He dragged me into the punishment room and clamped my hands into a set of manacles hanging from the wall.

I started to shake, realizing he was actually serious about his threat to whip me.

He yelled at me and told me what a terrible slave I was, but I barely heard him. I was too busy in my head, being disillusioned and jerked back to reality. For the first time in my life, my creative problem solving skills and verbal acuity and all the other things that I had been praised for in the last eighteen years were not assets anymore. They were problems, hindrances, signs that I was a dangerous, rebellious slave. I had stupidly hoped that my guard would be proud of me for finishing my task, that someone would give me a goddamn cookie for being clever.

The whip cut into my skin for the first time and I screamed, I wailed in agony, both at the searing pain on my back and at the loss of the person I used to be. Without my intellect to fall back on, I had nothing. I was nothing. As the blood ran down, my hopes for holding onto some part of myself seemed to pour down with it. I retreated from my body and disappeared into some sort of safe space inside my head. It was something I had always been capable of; I could avoid boring classes or nagging adults, but I had never needed it so much, nor had I ever disappeared this effectively. I detached from everything around me, pretending I was just evaluating the situation, not feeing it at all.

I was given twenty-five lashes, even though I only remembered the first one and then a lot of blurry pain. The thought crossed my mind that it would have been more efficient for my guard to stop after the first few lashes, when I was subdued but not damaged. I would have gotten the point of the punishment without dissociating, and I wouldn’t have spent the next day healing. I realized nobody cared about efficiency, or healing, or anything else but breaking us. In a way, that very logical error was what pulled me back, made me start to think and criticize and analyze everything around me again instead of just giving in.

It was bad, very bad of them to give me a whole day to do nothing but think and lie in the infirmary.

I thought of the historical torture methods I was briefly obsessed with in the ninth grade, when most of my peers were reading about world history and political structures. I had completed additional projects on the Nazi holocaust, the Spanish Inquisition, the American torture at Guantanamo Bay. I had been equally horrified and amazed at the atrocities people could commit against one another. I never really understood it until I experienced it firsthand.

I recognized the repetition of history when the guards treated us as less than human. Demoted. I could hear it in their voices, when they referred to us as “slave” or “girl” or “boy,” sometimes even “it” or “beast” or some other offensive term. Never by our names.

I was barely healed from my first whipping when the Devil Man offered me an “opportunity” after lunch one day.

“You and that scrawny boy over there, the one with the black eye,” he said, pointing at the other slave. “Fight for us. There’s some extra food in it for the winner.”

“No, thank you, sir,” I replied, keeping my eyes down. I didn’t want him to see the repulsion.

“Wasn’t a request.” He jerked me to the center of the room, while another guard dragged out my opponent. I had no desire to hit him. I didn’t need to reduce myself to fighting for food. If we starved to death, the re-education center would lose profits.

“Well, get moving!” The guards shoved us toward each other.

I watched my opponent warily. I would rather have been beaten than participate.

My opponent seemed to think otherwise. He looked as scared as I felt, but he came at me, landing a punch to my stomach. I winced at the pain, but stayed still, refusing.

“Put him on the floor!” one of the guards cheered. “Get him down for three seconds and you win!”

I smelled food, and I saw them waving a sandwich in front of us. I wanted it, but not as much as I wanted to retain my dignity. My opponent slapped and punched at me a few times, and I considered the rules. I could end it.

Without waiting for another hit, I dropped to the floor, lying on my stomach and covering my face. I heard the guards ordering him to kick me, and he did, his bare feet hurting more than I expected. I didn’t count, but I knew it went on longer than three seconds, and once he stopped, heavy boots replaced his feet, kicking harder. I didn’t look up until the pain stopped, and I saw my opponent looking hopefully at the guards.

“I did it, sir. Can I have the sandwich? Please? I’ll kick him more if you want.” He was desperate, nearly drooling at the sight of the sandwich like a dog for a bone. A word from the guards and he would have danced on his back legs.

I was sure he was a nice kid before.

He didn’t get the prize, and the look on his face when they ordered him to bed was one of pure shock. He looked at me, and I saw hatred. He didn’t hate them for making him play the game; he hated me for ruining it.

The next time they tried to make me fight, I hit the floor and started counting out loud, ending the game in seconds. I was surprised when the guards didn’t beat me for it, but that night, I was pinned to my bed by two people while my opponent punched me until I passed out. One of the last things I saw was the faces of the guards smiling from the hallway.

Just because we didn’t score as high on the Assessment, we were reduced to less than animals. Maybe we were having a bad day. Maybe we swapped tests to save our loved ones. Maybe Assessment results don’t fucking matter, or shouldn’t, and I couldn’t help but think that most of these people would have been a hell of a lot better off as free people.

The only thing that separated the Demoted from the rest of the world was the treatment. Degradation. Refusal to treat us as human beings. We were all raised in a society where the Demoted were viewed as less than human, and the only way most of us could reconcile that fact with our experience was to believe that we were, in fact, less than. Except I knew it was a lie.

Chapter 9
Borrowed

It’s while I’m serving my master another gourmet meal that he springs the next piece of information on me.

“My boss took quite a liking to you.”

He says it like it’s unfathomable, like someone had just expressed their undying love for cheap convenience store foods. Like someone had just expressed their undying love for an overpriced whore.

“Yes, master,” I mumble. What else am I supposed to say? I’m already thinking the worst, praying that he isn’t thinking of selling me to the man, giving me to him as some sort of friendly gift. I hadn’t gotten much of a read off of Mr. Dean at the Peace Day Celebration, but what I did didn’t exactly endear him to me. Besides, I finally feel like I know what to expect from my master, and it’s a comfortable feeling, if not a very warm one.

“He’s requested my company for dinner tomorrow night,” my master informs me, not looking at me for once. “As well as yours.”

“Yes, master.” My voice is stiff and I know it, but I try to remind myself that he just said for the night, not forever, and that means I might not be given away, I might stay with my master. After all, they had mentioned this before we left the casino after the Peace Day Celebration.

“You understand, then…”

“Yes, master.” I feel my face reddening as I anticipate his question. Of course I understand. I understand that I’m a slave, a whore, a hole to be fucked, and if his boss wants to fuck me, I am to do it and not complain, because it could be worse. I could be in a brothel again. He doesn’t have to remind me. “I’ll do it without complaint, master.”

He nods, still looking uncomfortable. “Well, it will be something to do, at least.”

It’s the closest I’ve heard him come to making small talk. My stupid response of “yes, master” doesn’t do much to further the conversation, though.

We go to his boss’s house the next day, and my master and I don’t exchange words. This doesn’t make me any less nervous, unlike the carefully selected outfit he had handed me after breakfast. I’m glad I don’t have to pick out what to wear. All I want is for him to tell me what’s going on, but I know I won’t get that. I shouldn’t even think that I deserve it, but I have to bite my tongue to keep from asking him.

I try not to think of anything as we’re escorted through the house, and I’ve gone completely away by the time we are seated, my master in a chair, me on the floor at his feet. I see the girl, Melinda, who the boss had at the Peace Day Celebration with him, and I smile at her hopefully.

She pretends I don’t exist.

I wait as the masters eat and chat about a promotion, wishing I’d be hand-fed by my master like Melinda is by hers, but no such luck. To be fair, my master hadn’t told me not to eat dinner, which probably meant I should have, but I would have been too nervous anyway. I almost miss the cue to stand, but a light kick at my back has me scrambling to my place next to my master.

“I would
love
to sign the final documents to finalize the promotion, Cashiel,” the boss says, his voice soft and content, lulled by the wine he’s been drinking all night. “I’ll have my staff draw them up and you can pick them up tomorrow.”

“Of course, Mr. Dean, that would be lovely,” my master replies, all smiles and business-appropriate happiness. “I’ll pick them up when I pick the boy up.”

I realize he’s talking about me and my stomach churns. It’s not that I didn’t know this was the plan, it’s just that I was trying to forget, trying to deny, and I was actually doing a pretty damn good job.

“Perfect,” Mr. Dean replies. He beckons me closer with a smile and I take one step, maybe two, before glancing back at my master hopefully.

“He’s a little shy,” my master says quickly, shooting me a glare that cuts through my entire being. “You know, takes a few minutes to warm up.”

“Well, I doubt you let him out of your sight,” Mr. Dean leers at me, holding an arm out.

I can’t ignore the glare I still feel from my master, so I force myself to go to the other man. He pulls me tight against his body and smells my hair. I try not to be sick and I look at my master, pleading, hoping. Don’t leave me here. Don’t leave me with him.

“I’ll be back tomorrow morning, Sascha,” he says. His voice is even, but the look on his face is a little irritated. On anyone else, I’d say a little worried. He squints at me for a few more seconds before addressing his boss. “Feel free to com me if there are any problems at all, sir.”

“Oh, I’m sure there won’t be.”

His hand tightens on my hip and I force myself not to shudder as my master nods and walks out without another word.

I want to run after him. Want to apologize for whatever I did wrong, beg him to take me back, beg him to keep me safe, like he has been.

“Sascha. That’s a pretty name, for a pretty boy.”

I barely hear the man’s voice, but his lips at my neck clue me in. “Yes, sir,” I mumble, my voice barely above a whisper. Maybe if he can’t hear me he’ll forget I’m here?

“I like girls, but I enjoy a pretty boy now and again, too,” Mr. Dean informs me, rubbing his hands across my legs and ass, pulling my body closer to his as we stand there. “Let’s move someplace a bit more comfortable.”

I do as he asks without a word, because there’s nothing I can say or do that would make me feel better, and if I protest, I’ll only anger my master. I let Mr. Dean lead me down a hallway and up a flight of stairs, where we come to a huge, ornately decorated room with an equally impressive bed. I’m like molding clay in his hands as he leads me toward the bed and sits down, pulling me to lie next to him and awkwardly cuddling me. I feel his lips brushing my collarbone and neck and cheek, and I realize he’s one of
those
guys. To think I used to appreciate this. The gentle, cuddly ones used to be my favorite.

His slobbery kisses make their way to my mouth and I fight to keep from pressing my lips into a tight line to keep him out. But I can’t resist. I can’t offend him, and even though I feel like slugs are crawling across my face, I let him kiss me.