Stephanie's First Day on the Plantation By Sir Kevin *************************** Early fall, 1992 Harrison County, Virginia (The county would be found in a separate state named "West Virginia" had the Union won the War.) *************************** "You'll be home soon, sweetheart!" The sheriff deputy smiled at Stephanie in the rear-view mirror as he pulled into a small dirt road, not far from where he had turned off US Highway 50. Apathetically, Stephanie surveyed the surroundings from the back seat of the patrol car. The dirt road wound its way across the vast horizon of ploughed land. On either side of the dirt road, a rugged wooden fence escorted the road towards a cluster of weathered farm houses surrounded by large oaks trees. The age-old, unpainted lumber of the fences were almost completely covered by flourishing wild roses. A few weeks before, landscape like this would have enchanted Stephanie into humming out her favorite Suzi Bogguss tune. But today, somehow the natural beauty of the simple country atmosphere had lost all its appeals to her. The car stopped in front of a wooden gate at the end of the road. Beside the gate, and next to a handsome white Arabian horse, the man to be known as "Master" was already waiting for them. The deputy opened the door for Stephanie, and again put on his broad smile. "C'mon sweetheart! Cheer up! You're home! And there's your master, Big Ron Jackson. Aren't you happy to meet him at last?" It was not easy to exit from the car with her wrists cuffed behind her back and her ankles connected by a short length of chain, but with the help of the deputy's friendly hands, Stephanie finally managed to balance herself on her bare feet. She took a quick glance at her new master, who gazed back at her with great interest. Clad in a lumberjack shirt, torn blue jeans and cowboy boots, he presented to Stephanie the perfect picture of a hillbilly, a figure as remote to her in real life as she must be to him. Realizing how ridiculous she must look to him in her shackles and her UCLA cheerleader uniform, Stephanie hanged her head in embarrassment. "I'll be damned, Al!" Ron exclaimed. "Now this is a bit of a surprise: she looks almost exactly like a white girl." "If you ask me," the deputy replied, "I say she IS a white girl. Sheriff Dodd told me she's being delivered to you under the Fugitive Slave Act, but you can't fool me --- this girl ain't no runaway slave! I kept asking her on the way, but the sweetie won't say nothing to me." "I don't blame her, Al. I'm not sure she knows enough herself." "So tell me 'bout it!" "Well, this babe is, what, one sixty-fourth --- hell no, a- hundred-and-thirty-second of a nigger, you know. What happened is that her grandma's grandma's grandma on her mother's side was a mulatto slave on the plantation when old Stonewall was still in charge. Rumor says she was fathered by old Stonewall himself, and somehow I think it's true. Anyway, some time during the War, this mulatto woman ran off with a bunch of Yankee soldiers, and ended up marrying one of them when the War was over. Well, that's about all we know, but it's enough to hold this babe here responsible for what happened back then --- thanks to the Helms Amendment to the Fugitive Slave Act, and the Supreme Court decision last May." "Yeah, good for you, Ron," the deputy commented. "Come to think of it, you are practically cousins to each other." "You're right, Al. Come to think of it, we are indeed!" The two men enjoyed their little chat for a few more minutes. Then Deputy Al removed the handcuffs and leg-irons from Stephanie's wrists and ankles, and drove off along the dirt road, promising to come to dinner some day, while Ron locked a heavy iron collar around the poor girl's neck, and mounted his house. He grinned at Stephanie, tugging gently on the chain attached to her collar. "Welcome home, cousin!" A rush of fear crept into Stephanie's mind when she found out that Ron was not taking her directly to the slave quarters. Instead, he led her to a large room in the mansion facing the main road, where the glamorous Victorian decorations, relics of the Jackson family's glorious past, struck a sharp contrast with the rest of the ranch. "Strip." As soon as the door closed behind her, Stephanie heard Ron's command in a rather authoritarian voice. She blushed. Not that she had never been naked in front of a man, but never in front of a perfect stranger. Besides, being ordered to strip itself was more humiliation than she had ever experienced. But she obeyed without further hesitation. Being a slave involved worse things than this, and she knew. She crossed her arms in front of her breasts after dropping the last item of clothing on the floor, in a feeble attempt to protect her modesty. But even this was not allowed. "Put your hands behind your neck, and spread your legs," came the next commend. Stephanie took on a deeper shade of blush, knowing how degrading this new position would be. But again she obeyed quietly. The chill of the cold collar chain dangling between her breasts caused her to shiver. "Beautiful. Simply beautiful." Ron murmured while pacing around the nude girl and touching different parts of her slim body with his fingers. He stopped behind Stephanie. Pulling her into his arms, he started fondling her round and firm breasts. Her nipples hardened almost immediately against his palms, and she felt a sense of arousal beginning to build up in the lower part of her body. She closed her eyes, feeling hopelessly torn between her heart and her mind, one telling her to enjoy the feeling, while the other telling her to reject it. "What size are these, slavegirl?" Ron's voice became soft, almost like whispers. "32A, sir." The blush on her face and neck now extended to the top of her breasts. "Hm. And how old are you?" "I'm eighteen, sir." "You city girls always look so much younger than you are." Ron heaved a sigh, and released her breasts to feel the muscles in her arms. "These tender arms, tsk. And your pale skin. Believe me, you won't survive one single day out in the cotton field." His hands returned to her breasts, one of them gradually wandering down to her exposed sex. "Then again," he continued, "I'm not sure I want you in the cotton field. That'll be a waste, won't it?" Not knowing what to say, Stephanie kept her mouth shut. Ron did not mind. He was very much pleased with this latest addition to his stable. "Kneel down, slavegirl." Stephanie dropped on her knees, and tentatively proceeded to sit on her heels. But a gentle kick on her left hip persuaded her to keep her body erect. "Now, play with yourself." For a moment Stephanie was petrified. She knew obedience was the most essential part of a slavegirl's code of ethics, but this was definitely too much for her to take. "You hear me, nigger? Go on, masturbate, now!" Ron was drastically raising his voice, and for the first time he called her a "nigger," in a way loaded with threats. "Please, Master..." Her feeble plea for mercy was answered roughly by a powerful kick between her shoulder blades. Caught completely in surprise, Stephanie fell forward onto all fours. Then came the explosive pain when the thin leather strap of a horse whip cracked loudly against the bare skin of her unprotected back. "So they say," Ron sounded genuinely angry, "a nigger will be a nigger, even with less than one percent of nigger blood." The whip landed again and again on Stephanie's back and buttocks. Shocked as she was, Stephanie took the first few lashes in noble silence, but the fifth or the sixth lash started to extract loud moans from her. Within fifteen strokes, she was forced to cry out for mercy. With great relief, she saw the whip thrown to the floor in front of her. "Kiss it, nigger!" Still panting heavily from the intense pain, Stephanie complied obediently. When she raised her head again, Ron was squatting by her side. Grabbing the trembling girl by her pony- tail, he forced her to lift her face to his. "Were you ever whipped before?" His voice again softened into near whispers. "No...sir." "Good," he planted a kiss on her cheek. "Now you have learnt the whip. Hope that'll make sure you never piss me off again." He stood up, and soon Stephanie saw his cloths and boots dropping on the floor next to her own. Her heart started pounding wildly. "Are you a virgin?" Ron asked as he knelt behind Stephanie. "No..." "Good. Then I don't have to worry about damaging anything." He entered her from behind. Stephanie bit her lower lip to keep herself from sobbing, but large drops of tear rolled down her cheeks, and dribbled into the thick Persian rug. It was at dusk when Ron finally led Stephanie out of the mansion by the chain on her collar. She was still naked. Her wrists were now tied tightly behind her back, and her ankles were again shackled and chained. "I think I'll find you stuff to do around the house," Ron informed her. "It's better for you, and better for my cotton, too. But you'd better live with the other slaves anyway." They walked into a small open area in front of the barn, where a group of white employees on the plantation had gathered for their after-dinner entertainment. As if at somebody's command, all the beer cans, poker cards, harmonicas and baseball bats were lowered, and every head turned to the naked girl at one precise moment. Several whistles came from the small crowd. Stephanie kept her eyes on her toes in humiliation, wishing the ground under her feet to open up and suck her in. "Oh mah Gawd, boss!" one of them managed to say after a brief silence. "Is this the new nigger girl you been talkin' 'bout?" "Yup." "You kiddin', Ron? This chick ain't no nigger. She's whiter than you 'n' me!" Another man decided to be more skeptical. "She only looks white," Ron explained, not without a touch of pride in his new acquisition. "She has less than one percent of nigger blood, but that's enough to make her legally a nigger." "Ah know how that is," a third man nodded, wiping his mouth with a sleeve. "Mah ol' man got one the other day just lak her. They say she was a big-time fashion model up in New York, but the next thing she knew, some new law made her a runaway slave." "You get more and more niggers with white skin these days," Ron remarked. "But a nigger is a nigger after all, even if she's white, green or blue." A man with a heavy beard drew up this rather philosophical conclusion, while walking up to Stephanie to pinch one of her nipples. "No doubt about it," Ron moved to end the discussion. "Well, you guys go on have your fun. I've got to take this nigger girl to the slave quarters." "Want me to do it for you, boss?" the bearded man asked. "Thanks, Tony, but no thanks. I want her to be there before Christmas, you know." The crowd burst into laughter. The slave quarters were made up of a cluster of old wooden shacks, reinforced at random places by rusty iron bars. The dense growth of weeds and wild vines around the shacks made it difficult to believe that people actually lived in them. At the first glance, Stephanie concluded that they must have been standing there ever since Robert Lee became president of the United States. Ron took Stephanie into a larger shack, which had a row of locked doors on either side of a long corridor. "This house is for the single slave women," he told her, "like yourself." He opened one of the doors, and thrust an old blanket into her bound hands. "Here's your room, slavegirl. And here's a blanket for you. You won't need any cloths for a few days. I always keep new girls in the nude for the first week or so, just to let your status on the plantation sink in well. And keep the men happy, too. Now you have a good night." The door was locked behind Stephanie, symbolizing her final severance from the world of freedom. There were five other girls, all black, in the cell, sitting or lying on a row of low wooden beds lined up against the wall. All of them stared at Stephanie, apparently puzzled by the color of her skin. There was no expression on their dark faces, but their eyes were filled with suspicion and hostility. "Hi!" Stephanie smiled at them nervously. "I'm Stephanie. I'm new here." There was no response. The other girls continued to stare at her motionlessly. Stephanie looked around, feeling rather awkward, and then walked to a bed that appeared to be vacant. "Is this bed taken?" she asked, in the most friendly voice she could imagine. No response. "Can I sleep here, then?" Still no response, but the black girls started to whisper among themselves. Feeling immensely frustrated, Stephanie dropped her blanket on the bed, and sat down on the edge. But before she could feel the rough wood under her buttocks, her blanket suddenly flew into a corner of the cell, narrowly missing the toilet there. Startled, Stephanie turned to find the youngest of the black girls, no more than fourteen or fifteen years old, waving a bony fist at her face. "Git your white ass off mah bed, white girl!" the younger girl shouted. "Dis is MAH bed!" Jumping to her feet almost subconsciously, Stephanie asked, still humbly: "Which bed can I take, then?" From the far end of the cell, another girl answered: "Dere ain't no bed for you here, white girl. You go ahead and sleep on the floor, where your blanket is." Stephanie had to fight back tears as she hobbled to the damp and filthy corner where her blanket had landed. Spreading the blanket with her fettered bare feet, she decided to lie down and keep to herself. But her wrists were hurting badly. And her hands began to feel numb. The thin nylon cord around her wrists must have obstructed her circulation. She studied each of the black girls carefully, searching for a face that promised the most sympathy. Her eyes settled on the one who seemed to be the oldest, perhaps in her late twentieth. She was sitting next to a girl lying on her belly, gently wiping the fresh whipmarks on the girl's back with a wet towel. The tenderness on her face and in her movements reminded Stephanie of a young mother nursing her new-born baby. "Excuse me..." Stephanie approached her cautiously. "What?" "Can you do me a favor? My arms are hurting terribly..." "I don't deal wid no white girl!" the black woman interrupted rudely. "Leave us alone, white girl!" "But I'm not a white girl!" Stephanie finally burst out. "I'm a slave just like you!" The black woman stood up, and threateningly put her hands on her hips. "Jist like me, huh? Why don't you smash dat white face of yours, 'n' den tell me dat!" At last, Stephanie lost the battle to hold her tears. She curled up into a ball in her corner, and wept herself into sleep.