A Private Heaven

Chama spoke up. "Several weeks after he bought me, he came back from the office one day holding a law book, and said he had just been checking some of the laws on slave emancipation. He does that a lot - looks up the laws himself pertaining to anything he does, even if it's not part of his work. Anyway, he has this book open. 'Do you realize,' he said, 'the way this law is written, I could charge you enough debt for expenses you incur to require you to cash out all of your emancipation rights to keep the debts paid off, and you'd never get emancipated?'"

I knew a little about how slave emancipation worked, but this was getting over my head. "Can you explain some of this slave emancipation stuff to me?"

"Okay," Chama began. "A slave needs seven years of emancipation credit to become a free citizen. And a year of emancipation credit is worth a certain amount of money. So slaves have to decide how much of the time they put in should be paid to them in money and how much should go towards emancipation. If a slave puts all of it towards emancipation, he will be free in seven years, but he'll have nothing while he's a slave except the basic food, clothing, shelter and health care his master is required by law to provide, and he'll have no money to his name when he's freed unless he had some other than as a slave. So most slaves take some of their credit as cash. Of course, it takes longer that way to become a free citizen, but you have pocket money, and you can save up some for when you are freed. In practice, most slaves take between ten and fourteen years to get emancipated.

"Anyway, Tom shows me this law and explains how masters can sometimes require their own slaves to incur debt to them. Now it's not unusual for slaves to borrow money from their masters, but what he was explaining was that a master can force a slave into a position where he has no choice but to borrow money from him, to where the only way the slave can pay it off is to take money for most or all of his time, giving him little or no emancipation credit. He could be stuck as a slave indefinitely, and won't get to keep much money either since he has to use it to pay the debt.

"When Tom told me this, for a second there he had me worried, but I didn't think he was the sort who would do anything like that to me. He went on to say that he wasn't a hundred percent sure if the courts would even uphold this interpretation of the law."

Oriana picked up the story. "The next day, he explains all this to me, and asked me to research the case history on this particular point of law. Well, I did the research, and not only did the courts agree with his interpretation, but I found several instances where slave owners had done just that to their slaves.

"When I told Tom, he seemed rather distressed by this. He was a slave owner too now, and to him it was like some sort of personal affront that it was legal for him to do this. We started looking for other loopholes in the laws pertaining to owner and slave's rights. We became a team, trying to discover ways masters and mistresses could be unfair to their slaves, and trying to figure out what we could do about it."

"I already knew a lot of slaves here in town," said Chama, "so he encouraged me to keep in touch with them, expand my network, and try to use it to find out as much as I could about situations involving masters and slaves that were legal but unethical or just plain wrong. The times I went back to Mistress Bianca's turned out to be real good opportunities. Bianca was a good mistress, but many of her slaves had previous owners, some of whom hadn't treated them well, and I often met guest slaves at her events who had stories to tell."

"We found several other problems with the existing law," Oriana continued, "so Tom contacted Devan Koonce, our representative, and Tom, Devan and I drafted the first version of what was to become the Slave Rights Act. It had several key provisions. For the debt situation, it made it illegal for an owner to use his position to force a slave to incur debt. They can still loan money to their slaves, but now the slaves act as free citizens in choosing to enter into the agreement.

"Another provision simplified the process for a slave who wants to self-market. That's if a slave believes he is being treated badly or unfairly and wants a new owner but the owner won't sell, a slave can petition the court for the right to put himself on the market against his owner's wishes. It's bad for a slave's reputation to do that without good reason since a lot of buyers don't like to risk owning a slave who's self-marketed before, but sometimes it's the only way for a slave to get out of a bad situation.

"As things developed, we also found out ways slaves can be unethical to their owners. Well, fair is fair, so we addressed some of those things too. That quieted many of the bill's opponents and even won support for it from some slave owners.

"As I'm sure you can imagine, even the simplest and most widely supported laws take a lot of work to get through committee, approved by legislature, and signed into law, and this one met with plenty of opposition. Some of it had to do with perfectly legitimate cases that the bill might have outlawed, and for those we had to rework the bill's language so that it wouldn't unnecessarily limit the rights of owners or slaves in situations that weren't problematic. Many slave owners would never treat their slaves unfairly anyway and had no problem with outlawing the most unfair practices. Some owners even saw the law as good public relations for the practice of slave ownership. But other slave owners opposed it, either as a matter of principle for slave owner's rights, or because they did some of the things the bill proposed to outlaw and wanted to keep doing them. It was a lot of work winning key votes and getting the act passed."

Glenda gestured to her, then picked up the story. "Tom spent countless hours on the phone over a period of more than a year. I think I have every member of the committee in my card file, and about half the rest of the legislature. I helped him plan numerous trips to the state house to meet with representatives, to speak before the committee, and in one case to speak before the full legislature. Tom even turned down clients to make sure he'd have enough time to support the bill. Devan is officially listed as the sponsor of the bill, but he had the whole rest of his constituency and a hundred other issues to think about, so Tom ended up doing most of the work. There were a couple of provisions in the bill that were very important to him that met stiff opposition, and he had quite a struggle keeping them in."

I was flabbergasted. It boggled my mind to realize we were talking about the same guy who a few days earlier had knelt before me, offering himself to me as a pleasure slave. "I had no idea," was all I could say.

"So that's the story, short version," said Oriana. "And all three of us are proud to have been part of the team that pulled it off."

"Thank you for telling me."

* * *

When Tom returned from the courthouse, it was like seeing him in a whole new light. I studied him, trying to picture him speaking before a committee at the legislature, or hobnobbing with some representative in the hallway. Also in the back of my mind was what I had agreed to that morning. But he seemed to be in a different frame of mind than usual, more thoughtful, more preoccupied. I went to Chama privately. "Chama."

"Yes?"

"Tom seems different tonight. Is this what you were talking about when you said you knew when and when not to play him?"

The ocelot smiled at me. "Very observant of you."

"Should I give him the night off?"

"You should ask him that yourself."

After dinner he presented himself to me in his usual manner. "Tom," I said to him, emphasizing his proper name, "do you need the night off to work on your trial?"

He smiled at me. "Thank you for asking. I was going to say something but Chama suggested I give you the chance to make the offer first."

It was a warm feeling knowing I had read him right. "Okay, you may have the night off."

He glanced away sheepishly. "Well, I don't necessarily want the whole night off. Some play helps me unwind."

"Oh, really?"

"Look at it this way," he explained. "Everyone needs to have something to do at the end of a long day at work, something to help you relax. For most people it's watching movies, listening to music, or a hobby like art, or collecting something. For me, it just happens to involve getting bound and teased and eating out my mistress, or whatever she happens to have in mind that day. On nights like tonight, I need to avoid anything too hardcore, but some more moderate activity is still good stress relief and might even help me think better about the trial."

Sure, whatever. "Okay, just let me know what works best for you."

We started with a more usual form of stress relief, a workout. All three of us ran a couple of miles and used the weight machine in the playroom. At Tom's suggestion, he gave me another bath like the one the day I arrived, only this time I returned the favor, washing his fur. It was a nice way to explore his body further. As we did this, we talked some more.

"I give closing arguments in the trial tomorrow morning, and I keep running through everything we covered at the trial trying to figure out if there's a better way to present the case to the jury. I have all day tomorrow blocked out for the case." He went on to explain what happens if it takes longer than that for the jury to reach a verdict. He wouldn't discuss any specifics of the case, citing client confidentiality and saying it would probably bore me to tears anyway.

I worked some soap into the fur of his neck and shoulders, and couldn't suppress an image of Chama dominating him. "Tom, I was wondering... I had always imagined a dominant as dressed in black leather, holding a whip, speaking with a commanding voice. But I can't picture Chama doing that. Is she like that at all?"

Tom laughed. "Occasionally. When she's not pleased, she has a look that'll drive a dagger into your heart. But you're right, she doesn't use the classic dom approach very often. She has other ways that are more subtle but equally effective, if not more so."

"What kind of ways?"

His eyes became a little more vacant. "She can just look at me with those amber eyes and smile, stroke me on the head, and speak the right words to me in a low, soothing tone of voice, and next thing I know, it's like she's cast a spell over me, like I've signed my free will over to her. I'll do anything she tells me, I'll let her do anything to me, and nothing matters to me more than pleasing her." He blinked, and his eyes regained their usual luster.

"Now that I can easily see Chama doing. Heck, I think she's done it to me a few times. Like when she convinced me to accept you as my slave."

"I'd like to think I played a part in that."

I thought back to that moment. "Yes, I suppose you did."

"I had a very good teacher." He scrubbed my back with his fingers. "But I never lose myself to her completely. Maybe the most submissive part of me wishes I could, but the more rational part of me won't let that happen. There's always that small part of my mind that's ready to take control anytime I have to. Chama knows my limits, and as long as she doesn't exceed them and doesn't run up against my cardinal rules about the law practice and being discrete, that part of my mind can keep quiet and let me trust her completely, which is how I prefer it."

"And what if you really were her slave? Legally, I mean."

His tone changed. "What I've freely chosen to do with Chama is not something any slave, even a pleasure slave, should ever be forced to do against their will. Becoming a slave means being indebted to work until you've earned back your freedom, but you're not obligated to do it under a particular master or mistress and a slave should never be forced to go against his principles."

I remembered how he reacted the second day of my visit when I asked him about the practice of slavery. "At lunch today we were talking about your work on the Slave Rights Act. What made you do it?"

"I am, in a sense, both a slave and a slave owner, so I was in a position to empathize with either side. Whenever I would hear of something slave owners were doing to exploit or mistreat their slaves, it was an affront to me as a slave owner that other slave owners would do that, and as a slave it was a violation of the rights of a group I liked to think of myself as part of. Sometimes I tried to think what it would be like if I couldn't trust Chama and she really was my legal owner. I had to do something about it.

"They say things happen for a higher purpose. I'm one of the best lawyers in town - or so others tell me - so what's a guy like me doing fantasizing about being a sex slave? Then I met Chama and later bought her, and next thing I know I'm living my fantasy, but part of me was still wondering, what the hell am I doing this for when there are so many other things I could be doing with my time and money? Then I found that loophole about slave debt, and suddenly everything clicked. I'd found my purpose."

I looked at him admiringly. "I'll bet slaves everywhere are thankful that you did."

"If some of the letters I've received are any indication, they are. It's sort of an ongoing effort. I took care of the worst injustices in the Slave Rights Act, but I still hear about others. I'm doing some work on follow-up legislation, but there's only so much you can legislate."

After finishing the bath, we went downstairs and he went to his office while Chama and I watched a movie. When it ended I was tempted to go into the office, slide under the desk and give him a nice surprise, but decided it would probably be a violation of his first rule, so instead I went up to the bedroom to read, and chose an alluring pose that would give him an eyeful when he entered. I put on a pair of thigh-high stockings and a see-through top, and was lying on my stomach on the bed with my legs spread, tail up, and rear toward the door, giving him a full view of my exposed pussy. Sure enough, I heard him come up the stairs a few minutes later, and when he entered and saw me, he was out of his pants in seconds. He took me from behind rough and hard, just as I was hoping he would. It was wonderful.

Thursday

Tom had to get up early. I could have slept longer, but who was I to deny him his favorite course for breakfast? After he left, Chama and I began our preparations for the trip up Blue Mountain. She told me some more about Tom and the Slave Rights Act.

There were a couple provisions in the Act that Tom had a really tough time convincing the committee to keep in. One of those dealt with the use of pleasure slaves as prostitutes. As Chama explained, being a prostitute has certain advantages and disadvantages compared to being a pleasure slave. Among the disadvantages is the 'use once, then throw away' attitude many clients have toward prostitutes. Another is that it requires a lot more mental and emotional effort to working with a new, unfamiliar person. But prostitutes have the advantage of being able to pick their clients and set their rates, or to work under a house mistress they trust to do those things for them. They also get to decide when and how much to work, and if it all gets to be too much, they can always quit the profession. Pleasure slaves don't have those choices, but to offset them, ideally they would work under a master or mistress who will take responsibility for their well being, with whom they can develop a good working relationship. There are often other members of the household they serve, in addition to guests and such, but as long as the master or mistress is overseeing it all and is careful who spends time with his or her slaves, things are generally tolerable or better for the slave. In some cases, however, people were buying pleasure slaves to use in a prostitution business, and the slaves in that situation got the worst of both worlds - all the disadvantages of prostitution and none of the advantages. The owners had no reason to develop any kind of a relationship with their prostitute slaves, and since slaves can't quit short of self-marketing, the owners had little incentive to make the kind of accommodations for the slaves that a house mistress normally would to keep her free prostitutes working under her.

To address this, Tom wrote a provision into the Slave Rights act that limited how much owners could sell the services of pleasure slaves and skilled slaves to third parties in exchange for money. They couldn't outlaw it entirely since many slave owners did it at least occasionally and it was a widely accepted part of the job. "Even Bianca sometimes took money for our services," said Chama, "but she didn't do it that often and was always careful who she did it with, so it wasn't a problem." The way the provision worked, an owner could sell only so many hours per week of the slave's services to third parties. If they go above that amount, the slave gets much broader free citizens rights, including among other things the right to half the money. Some skilled slaves, those with skills that would be freely marketable at well above the standard slave labor rate, were in a similar position. But it was also common for owners to have their slaves trained in a skill they didn't possess when purchased, an arrangement that was beneficial for both owner and slave, so the act had to be crafted carefully to support and encourage that practice.

The other situation Tom wanted to address was shared ownership. That's when a slave has several owners, people who normally wouldn't be able to afford a slave who pool their resources to buy one who is then shared among them. Once again, that's not usually a problem for general labor slaves, such as a maid who cleans several owners' houses in rotation, but for a pleasure slave, shared ownership can be hell. Imagine a female owned by five or six guys who take turns with her. There's no one owner to go to with any complaints, only the whole group of them, and the peer pressure among them must be overcome before they will take seriously any appeals brought to them, often a near impossibility in practice. So he included this provision in the act that said pleasure slaves could only be owned by an individual or by a couple in a committed relationship.

Unfortunately, both of these provisions ran into stiff opposition among a certain subset of slave owners. Where most of the act had enough support to pass, these two provisions could jeopardize the entire act if he insisted on keeping them in, yet to Tom, removing them was not an option. To pull it off, he needed to win a few key votes.

As Chama explained all this to me, I nodded. "I understand Tom went through a lot for that act."

A shadow seemed to pass over Chama's face. "Yes, he did. For a while, it got more personal than that for him. What I'm about to tell you is highly confidential. In fact, you're the first person we've told, and I wouldn't be telling you if I hadn't already discussed it with Tom."

"Okay."

"Once Tom became my pleasure slave and found out about the treatment some slaves received, the things he was trying to remedy with the Slave Rights Act, he would ask me to act out some of those things with him. He had me do things to him that I know he really hated, and I could tell. There were times when I nearly safeworded on him from the top. But he insisted on going through with them because it helped him empathize more with those he was trying to help, and it motivated him to work harder for passage of the act.