The Black World Pt V
Title: the Black World pt V
Author: Kathryn O
Pairing: Paul/other
Rating; PG-13
Warning: Het, (more studding and breeding), slavery, cannibalism
Summary; Shouky is just a woman living on a small farm in the post-apocalyptic 1990s (AU) until two slaves or Consurs named Paul and George turn her life upside down. In this chapter, Paul tells Shouky about why he sent his family into the cannisters, what happened to him when he first came out of them, and his life before he came to be on her farm.
Pt V
After the remains of the dinner were cleared away and the last of our guest was gone, me and Sir went to bed. Of course I went in to check on Paul. I figured he’d ask for George to sleep with him, but no. George went out to the shelter to sleep with the other Concurs. Paul asked if I’d stay with him.
At first, I sat on the chair in his room like I did when he was sick, but once we could hear Sir snoring in the next room, Paul mumbled, “It’s cold in here. It’s so cold in this house.”
I told him I’d get him another blanket if he’d like.
He said he’d rather I get in bed with him and keep him warm. He said he couldn’t be alone.
“Then why didn’t you get George?” I asked him.
“Because I need the company of a woman tonight,” He told me.
I figured I’d just tell Sir that Paul was being feverish and needed some comfort to stay calm in the morning. So, I got into the bed with him and he pulled me close to him so I was lying on my side practically on top of him. He held me and he wanted me to hold him back so I did.
We laid like that all quiet in the dark before he started crying again.
“We did it for our children, you know. We never dreamed it’d turn out like this,” he said.
“Did what?” I asked him. “What did you do for your children?”
“Put them into the canisters to sleep out the war. Went into the canisters ourselves.”
“Why did you people ever do such a thing?”
Paul sighed and then said as he wiped his eyes, “When the first blast happened, we knew the world was damaged. We didn’t know how bad. Everyone was scared. When the idea of riding out the radiation and fallout in a frozen sleep was first marketed mostly to the rich, we didn’t even think of it. But what disturbed me and my wife most wasn’t for ourselves, but the idea of our children never getting a chance to grow up. We discussed it at length about putting them in the canisters and getting them out later, but none of us could bear the idea. Then, the thought of all of us going in and coming out as a family happened. And as more blasts happened and the world was going to ruin, it looked more appealing even if those blast were on the other side of the globe.”
“Asia somewhere,” I said just to show something I remembered from schooling. “I could point to it on a map where they happened.”
“Middle East,” Paul said saying its name. “It happened there first. We knew it was the end then. The guy we talked to about it convinced us even further while there was still time. I know some people got chosen in a Government lottery to get frozen, but anyone with the right amount of money to pay could go at their will. Do you know the last time I saw my children was hugging them goodnight before seeing them lay down among rows of some silver canisters and watching and official press the buttons for the freezing telling me that they were safely asleep now?”
“When did you go in?”
“I kissed Linda and we both went in at the same time. The officials said it was easier that way for a couple. That’s it. I never saw any of my family again.”
“Not even when you woke up?”
He shook his head. “I woke up in some type of doctor’s office or lab. I was with several others, all men about my age. I don’t know what happened to my family. At first it was like when you wake up in the morning and have those few moments where you don’t remember who or where you are. Only when the reality sank in here, it was a nightmare. I was examined and given water and some strange food like it was space food or something. I needed it as I didn’t feel so good. I couldn’t walk at first but they said that would be rectified in a few hours. I was put in a room with benches and many other men all over forty. We were given some type of orientation about our new lives and how we’d be put to work and what rules we had to obey. There were a lot of rules. We didn’t realize we were being sold for money right away. I heard it first as a rumor then it became a reality when it happened.”
“You all were men?”
“Yes. They separated the canisters by gender and age a bit. The younger ones and the women and girls were elsewhere. I searched for a face I knew but didn’t know anybody. We tried to help each other though. We all named names we were looking for and told each other who we were. Some knew who I was because I had been famous, but no one could help me. The guards started to punish us a bit if we seemed to be finding out too much. Then I got taken to Triage. Basically, if you had all your limbs and were under 60 you got put there. That’s where they sort you as to whether you’d be on a labor market or not. It really was a game of chance. If you got put in a group that was going to the rural areas, you’d either be labor or food mostly. If you were in a group that got sent to the bigger cities like most, you were labor, food or organs. The organs was the most lucrative market I’ve been told. It was only by chance that me and George were both put into groups that got sent to rural markets. Just pure chance. George would have ended up on the medical market had he gone to the city.”
“When did you get sold to your master you sang for?”
“He wasn’t my first master. I was sold out to a farm to work with a master who held a whip and kept us cold all the time. He kept threatening to eat my arms if I ever couldn’t work. We butted heads quite a few times, but I was hoping to go off and find my family. So, one night, I did the unthinkable.”
There was only one thing a Consur called unthinkable. “You ran away.”
“Yes. But in a small town, there was no where for me to go. I got caught right away. I didn’t know about all the laws surrounding this culture of the Consur and how most of the citizens approved of it. Turns out we were asleep for almost fifteen years. Things and people changed after the war. Somehow, a society evolved that just accepted us being treated like we were. Back in the Before Times, it would have been unthinkable in a Western society.”
“I don’t remember what the Before Times was like. Nothing changed much out here except for the Consurs and even they might be different from the workers we used to use, but I couldn’t tell you how. We still get the workers and use them, especially during the season.”
“Well, I can tell you it is ironic for us that we went into the canisters some of the richest and powerful people and came out on the low end of the totem pole. Some say it was planned all along, but I don’t know what to believe.”
“I was told we just forgot about you. When the chambers were found under many major cities, it was sort of scary. We all thought it was an army or a virus. I remember. Then it was revealed that you all were just people who slept the war away and there was no harm. I even remember the arguments about Consurs when they first appeared. How labor was so short since the population was so small. How each Consur was supposed to be evaluated and fitted into our society to help rebuild.”
“Yeah, we were evaluated all right. How much work we could do with no pay and little rights, how good our organs worked and how good we tasted.” He pursed his lips and made a noise.
“How did you get bought be that man who had you singing?” I asked.
“When I got brought back to my first master, it was rough. I almost didn’t survive. I started to sing as I worked and it helped and I sang at night in the shelter and pretty soon others would join in, not just Consurs either. I still tried stuff, hoping to get away. I even tried to get a bus schedule to get a way out of town but I had no money and didn’t know how to get any. That was the one thing that ruined my plan of leaving. The master said I was getting to be more trouble then I was worth after I kicked up a fuss about something. I think he was feeding me Consur meat or something. We had so many fights, I don’t remember them all. I wasn’t the only one fighting; it happens more often then you’d might think, but I got put in the box a few times as punishment. I sang my way through that.”
I had heard about the box, a solitary chamber to break a hard Consur’s spirit. I even heard my daddy and Sir both had them, but I never seen one.
“I don’t know how my second master found out about me. I know I led singing when we went into town to haul supplies into trucks, haul our farms wares into markets. I think that must have been it but I don’t know. I just know my master told me he sold me and to go with my new master now who said I was going to sing for him. He traveled around with this bag of practically gypsies or ragamuffin’s who sang for money in every town they could get too. He wanted me as part of his act and being a Consur, he didn’t have to pay me squat. I sang for him though, partly because it was fun and partly because it was better then the farms and mostly because I hoped with traveling around, I could maybe find Linda or someone I knew before. Do you know what the Church of the Risen Savior is?”
I had heard of it. “Some preachers that preach to Consurs, except that some say they have no souls or were sinners before and now must pay. The Bible says slavery is okay.”
“Yeah. It’s some religion for the Consurs. I never got into it and neither did George since he already had a religion. I can tell you, there’s always one group of Consurs who meet and pray in any farm. The main church travels around and tries to get one and hand them Bibles and stuff. Some other Churches argue that Consurs shouldn’t be allowed to pray and it’s a hot button issue in these parts, but the main members of the Church sometimes are allowed to come on farms and preach on a Sunday if the master lets it. Some masters do and my old one did. I didn’t go for any of that myself but they exist. What is getting to me is when I was singing, there was this one guy I saw whenever I visited this one area with the band, and he’d shake my hand and tell me if I went to that Church’s main office in his town, I’d find a miracle waiting for me. I ignored him. Besides, my current master didn’t care about my soul or body or anything as long as I could make him money. Now I know why that man was telling me to go.” And Paul began to cry. “Because Linda was there. That’s why the Church’s Logo is on her letterhead. That’s why he was telling me to go. He was one of the ones who remembered me from the Before Times though I never knew him. If only he told me directly why I should have gone I would have found a way to get there.” Paul really began to cry now. I felt hot tears spill on my hands.
I hugged him harder. “Why would Linda be mixed up with that Church?” I asked him.
“I don’t know. She’s a Consur as I am. I’m sure of it. They must have bought her or something. I don’t know. Maybe she’s using it as a reason to travel around and look for me.” He sobbed. “God, to think I was so close to her and didn’t even know it.”
I didn’t sleep much that night and neither did Paul. I held him until my arms went numb as he told me about how cruel his second master was to him as well, keeping him locked up when he wasn’t working and in filth sometimes if they couldn’t find ways to get clean as they traveled. He was even fed meat sometimes and got sick. Once or twice, he had to eat Consur and knew it and threw it up and never touched it again.
“It was on the road in that funny van and trailer that I came here and met your husband. He was just another fan of my music in another joint in town. My master had early on started sort of pimping me. I’m not sure how that got started. I think someone made him an offer and he told me to do it and then it became sort of a regular thing, just another way for me to earn some money. It didn’t happen every time, but there were certain towns it happened more and more. Your husband was one of those men, but he was a bit different. First of all, he was nice to me and talked to me. He actually wanted to talk to me about my past though I couldn’t even remember most of it. He also tried to make sure that I felt good like he did. No one else cared like that. He even made a comment he’d buy me from my master, but my master said he couldn’t come up with a price for me yet. It was during this pimping stuff that I met the guy who told me to check out the Church of the Risen Savior too. That guy asked me if I preferred men to women and I said no, I missed my wife. That’s when he told me to go to the Church.” And Paul went on telling about his travels on the road in that trailer. Then, he got really sick and his master didn’t want him anymore. He had gotten paid for Paul to sing quite a bit and had to give back all that money nearly going broke. That’s when he sold him to my Sir.
“I was a little scared at first, remembering the farm before, but I was so sick I didn’t care. I thought I’d never get well. And then I was put in a house instead of a shelter and you were here practically bringing me back from the dead, and for a while, life seemed to get better.”
I was exhausted in the morning, but I had to get up to get breakfast ready for Sir and George and there were always the chores to be doing.
Sir came stumbling out of his room and asked me how Paul was doing as I gave him some coffee.
“He’s sick,” I said, “But not like before. Just let him alone and let him rest, I think is the best way to make him well.”
George showed up and I cut him some cheese and bread. He really seemed to be sort of doting on Sir, sitting closer to him, even laughing at his jokes. George had his good moods but he wasn’t that bubbly or open. I could see what was happening. He was going to suck up to Sir to see what he could find out about Linda’s other letters. Even knowing what was going on, it still was sort of sickening to see. George wasn’t really being himself. He even patted Sir’s ass once when he got up from the table, but Sir just ate it all up. He seemed to love having George around him like that.
Paul eventually got out of bed, but he didn’t talk to anybody. He kept his head down and it was like a black cloud was over his head. I knew work would do him some good and I set him to helping me milk the cows since he ate so much cheese anyhow. I put him downstairs fixing some walls too since that would get him away from Sir. Some of the walls needed some crumbling spots repaired and he pounded with an angry noise as he worked.
What made things worse was Mr. Cage didn’t have any music work for Paul to do during December and was out of town with his other acts getting them work. He said he had an idea to take Paul to the city and was paving the way, but I didn’t like the thought of Paul leaving here.
And with no other work, the studding came back. Holidays got some of the people thinking about extra money and families and that old idea of selling children was hot again. Phone calls started coming in asking Sir for Paul’s services only now the weather was getting bad and there was no way I could drive in it and Sir had too much work to do to go himself. Then he got this idea. If they’d bring their women to us, he’d let Paul use his upstairs bedroom.
I knew Paul wasn’t going to like that idea any better, but of course he didn’t show it much. He was just doing what he had to do to survive. So, now I often had some grizzled neighbor in my kitchen I was serving lunch too who had arrived with some chained woman in the back of a vehicle who I couldn’t make eye contact with. I hated watching the women getting led upstairs were Paul was waiting but at least once the door was shut, one had no idea what was going on except for the occasional sound of furniture scraping the floor a few times.
All that sort of came to a head one Sunday. I think Paul and George were sort of being deliberately bad that day, but I don’t know. Maybe it was because we had finished with our beef in the freezer and started on the Consur so I had the meat boiling on the stove before I could spice it and put it in the oven. Sir’s daddy was coming by and I always had to feed him good on a Sunday.
I kept George busy churning butter, which was great. He just sat in the corner of the kitchen pumping his hands up and down freeing me up to do other chores. Besides, it looked good for him to be working when Sir’s father was around.
There was this woman Paul had been supposed to get pregnant, but the weather had been really bad and nobody was getting through to anybody else. I wonder if being cooped up is what made Paul and George be so bad that day.
On Sunday, the woman’s master called and said the roads were passable and she was still fertile. He didn’t want to have to wait another month to get it started since it took so long anyway. Could he bring her by on a Sunday today? Sir said yes for some reason. I guess he was just trying to be accommodating. It was all for money.
When Sir’s daddy arrived, Paul just stayed upstairs and didn’t come down. But George said he was hungry and I gave him some bread and cheese which he ate in front of Sir’s father right there at the dining room table. I know he was doing that to be sort of bad. Sir and I let him eat there all the time, but his daddy gave him a mean look at not being in his proper place and then went into the living room with his drink which if you don’t know Sir’s father, he never eats or drinks in a living room.
That was when the woman was brought in and led upstairs right in front of everybody.
Sir’s father made a comment about whoring in the house, but Sir said that studding was a legitimate money making job for a Consur and that he had Paul’s paperwork in order and everything.
I let the neighbor who brought his Consur sit with us and gave him a drink and some bread as well which he ate in the living room with Sir’s daddy while they talked about men’s stuff.
That was when the thumping started. Like I said before, Paul was usually quiet except for maybe one or two scraping sounds when he was busy mating, but not this time. He made sure we knew every time he thrust into that woman by slamming that bed against the wall making it thud. It just kept up and he started making sounds like, “Oh my God,” which he never did before either.
What was sort of funny was that the door happened to swing open and if one stood by the base of the stairs one could see him with his shirt on and nothing else doing that woman like they were dogs. For some reason, having the shirt made it even more obscene then if he had just been totally naked.
I saw Sir’s daddy peer upstairs then look away and try to keep talking to Sir and the neighbor about anything but what was going on above them.
When George brought his plate into the kitchen and started washing some of my pans from cooking, he just smirked at me and turned away. The whole house could hear the thumping and Paul’s calling.
When Paul climaxed, he made sure we all knew it too. He hollered up a storm and gave one or two wall shaking slams before he called out, “And another satisfied customer.”
I saw George hunch his shoulders and I knew he was laughing. Nobody else was.
Then we all heard Paul in the bathroom with the water running and him scrubbing. He came downstairs still wearing that shirt he had on but at least he had pants now though they were undone still as he made a big show of tucking in his shirt and zipping up. He didn’t care about tucking in a t-shirt before. It was some sort of show in front of Sir’s daddy. I could tell.
“Hey, Shouky,” He called to me in the middle of the living room in front of Sir and his neighbor and his daddy. “That made me hungry. What have you got for me to eat?”
Sir’s daddy was looking like he was ready to explode as I led Paul into the kitchen and fixed him some of the same bread and cheese I gave George. He at least didn’t go to the dining room but talked to George as George worked and Paul ate standing up.
“Hey,” Sir said to his father. “All’s that matters is she gets a baby in her, and Paul sure can make babies.”
I don’t think that made his father feel any better about the whole thing.
Sir drank a bit at the table, inviting the neighbor to stay, let his lady Consur rest upstairs with her legs up so her body can take to the pregnancy better. Better chances of it happening. With the meat on the table, Paul and George did not want to join us and no one pressed the issue.
When everyone was finally gone it was getting near dark. Paul finally decided to go back to his room and George was helping me clean up. Sir went out to do some chores and while he was gone, George mumbled to me, “If you keep an eye out for William to return, I would like to look through his papers in his desk in that small room he uses and see if I can find Linda’s letters.”
I didn’t know about that. We’d all get in trouble if we got caught. Was it a bad thing to do? One of those gray areas the Preacher talked about, maybe either way, got a bit of both to it. But I wanted Paul to be happy and I knew that getting in contact with his wife was what would do it, so I gave in and agreed to keep an eye out as long as George didn’t mess anything up or steal. Some of those papers were pretty important. He promised he wouldn’t.
Sir was only gone for a little while when I saw him staggering back. It was almost hard to see him in the dark. I hollered out to George to come help me in the kitchen. That was his warning and he got it. I didn’t think he found anything and after Sir went and sat back down in the living room playing his music, George whispered to me he didn’t.
With Christmas looming, Paul and George were eyeing the mail all the time to keep an eye out for another envelope with funny stamps. They were thinking Linda would write come Christmas. Paul thought about writing to her at the return address, but George and I talked him out of it. There was no guarantee Sir wouldn’t see the letter as it went out to the box, and we didn’t want to give away yet that we knew about it. Paul didn’t like that much but agreed to give in for a little while at least.
His singing started taking on a different quality. At first, he started singing all the love songs he wrote to Linda over the years, some of them pretty popular songs. Sir loved this. But then, he just started singing all sorts of different love songs about being kept from your love and not being able to see them or tell them you love them and not letting anyone else knowing about it.
I knew what he was signing about, but Sir said it was because Paul loved men as well.
George was really sucking up to Sir, touching him and hanging on every word. Filling his glass and lighting his cigarettes for him. It was sickening but then I saw George was doing all these chores so that as it got dark and cold, he wanted to be the one Sir sent out to get the mail every day. That got to be his goal and sure enough, George made such an offer, “Oh you worked so hard today out there in that barn. Why should you have to walk that long trek in the dark to the road and the mailbox? I’ll do it for you if you like,” and Sir readily agreed.
About a week before Christmas, I could tell a letter came. George’s eyes were different when he came back in the house wearing a thick coat and hat and his boots. Normally he would kick off his boots, rub his hands to warm them up and put the mail on the counter and then start helping me finish getting supper ready or sit down to eat if it was already on the table.
But this one day, he hung up his coat, warmed his hands, put the stack of letters on the counter in the kitchen for Sir to see, and went upstairs quietly on the pretense of using the bathroom.
I could tell by his eyes that something was up. Paul seemed to sense it too and followed. Neither came back down until Sir hollered that food was ready and I could tell by the looks they gave each other something was going on but there was no way I could find out just yet.
I had George help me in the kitchen while Paul entertained Sir by singing in the front parlor after dinner. That’s when I asked him if anything came that day and he told me yes but it was sad. He said when we get a chance, he’ll let me read it later.
Paul took Sir to bed with him after the singing and that’s when George pulled the letter out of his hiding place behind the bookcase. Not much chance of Sir finding it there. I took it and read:
Dear Paul,
I miss you so much. I know you are still there on Williams Farm. I do not know if you have been told about me trying to contact you, but I am going to say if these words find their way to you, I love you and hope the best for you in this New Year.
I am sad though in that our lease is up where I live and we will have to find a new place for our Church since our landlord got a better offer from someone else for this place. I don’t know if where I’m moving will take me closer or farther from you, but there is the hope it may bring me closer to one of our children. I shouldn’t burden you with my troubles since you probably have more then enough of your own.
I love you.
Linda
When I was done, I asked George, “Do you know where she is?”
“I’m going to look it up on a map. William has an atlas in his bookshelf and we’re going to try and see if we can find the town she’s in. Paul wants to try and write to her before she moves.”
“Maybe wherever she is, she isn’t allowed to receive letters,” I told him.
“We were wondering about that, but we don’t think so. Church of the Risen Savior has always tried to get some rights for Consurs. At least the ones I met did. There were other branches that told us to accept our lot in life and obey our masters, but they still wanted us to be treated well. I think whoever her masters are, they let her write freely.”
“It will take some doing for Paul to get a letter out. Sir keeps the stamps in his locked desk.”
“Well, thanks for telling me that then. We didn’t know how we were going to get a stamp.”
I didn’t mean to help, but was glad that I did and if they ever got a stamp or a letter out, I never knew about it.
George became convinced the letters had to be in the lock boxes in the closet. That’s where Sir would store any paper that was important but didn’t need to be looked at too often, like the deeds to our land.
George knew where Sir kept the keys, in his dresser drawer. We all knew that. It wasn’t a secret but he needed me to keep lookout while he went through everything. It wasn’t easy. It did keep me from my work some, but I knew I had to help. When Sir would go off to the barn for a while is when George would tell me we should do it. He’d only get so far when he’d have to stop, either Sir would come back to the house for something or I’d get called away. I don’t know how many times this went on, quite a few.
One day he had Paul come with him to help him go through all the locked boxes, sorting through things and putting them back neatly. That’s what took the time.
One afternoon, when Sir thought we all were trying to get mice out of the upstairs (an excuse to go through things) they found some funny things in one box. A bunch of sexy ladies underwear which made them both laugh, some nasty magazines and even a few nude photos of Paul lounging on one of our nicer chairs.
“Don’t ask me about that,” Paul said when George showed it to him.
“I won’t,” George said but you could hear the smile in his voice.
Finally George called out, “I knew it! Here they are! Found them,” and he held up about four envelopes that matched the ones we already had.
“How are we going to do this?” Paul asked.
“Well, let’s just take the letters since they’re already open,” George said. “And leave the envelopes where we found them. That way William might not notice they’re gone.”
We all agreed that was a good idea, but reading the letters would have to come later. Right now, we all had to tend to our chores or Sir would become suspicious.