My Descent into Slavery Ch. 15

"Aye, aye," Björn said.

******

It took us about ninety minutes to put together Yasmine's agreement. A lot of it was based on mine, so it was pretty much cut and paste to put that together. The primary differences were Yasmine agreeing to wear Björn's marks, some piercings she was willing to get and perhaps a tattoo as well.

Björn agreed to provide Yasmine with up to two children. Child support of $500 a month for one, $900 a month for two if their relationship ended, until the children reached age eighteen. He'd be given custody of the kids every other weekend if they remained in the same city, or two months of every summer if they did not. He would also have three weeks at other times of the year, especially pre-school, but perhaps after, to take the children to Norway to visit his relatives every year. Yasmine agreed not to attempt to keep the children away from him, to respect that he was their father and honor him for it. It all seemed quite reasonable on everyone's part.

While I worked on hers, I made some changes to my own, since I was fiddling with it.

"When do we sign these?" Yasmine asked.

"Anytime you want. It doesn't make that much difference, although signing it at the ceremony might be nice, because it lends solemnity to the occasion, but most of the ceremony is devoted to the ceremonial collaring and ceremonial fucking, which might be conducted in public, so it's clear to everyone that you proclaim yourself to be Björn's slave. Since he's married, he may want you proclaiming your subservience to Lynn as well."

"I'd have no problem with that. I'm happy she has no objection to his giving me children. It's a different kind of relationship, isn't it?"

"Very much so."

"I was thinking of Marilyn, once married to Frank, and now she'll be his slave, and like a slave to his new girlfriend as well, even though they have a daughter together."

"That is a little on the strange side, but there have been lots of strange things in the last 15 months of my life. I'm not sure that's the strangest, although it's up there."

"Do you think Maahnoor and Henry will stay together?"

"I think they will, but I'm sure there will be some bumps along the way. They did marry hastily, without a chance to explore what their life might be like in the future. Maahnoor's family was rejecting her, and Henry wanted to help her out. His heart was in the right place, but it was jumping the gun."

"Hannah told me they found my parents. I didn't want them told I was alive. I'm living with a man, not married. They would have felt dishonored, but I accept I am a slave, and they'd never be able to accept that. Soon, I hope to have children with my Master. They would want me dead, so I choose to be dead to them."

"I'm sorry your culture doesn't make allowances for some of the natural differences in people."

"You said I might be married some day, because of the age difference between Master and me. Perhaps if I get married, I could bring my children home to meet their grandparents, but never before then."

"I understand."

After Yasmine left, I brought the changes I wanted in my own slave agreement to Master. He, Miranda and Sahar were in bed together, for the moment, resting. I handed Master the paperwork.

"If you're willing, sir, these are the changes I'd be willing to make to my slave agreement."

"Articulate them briefly."

"I'm willing to have my pubic hair permanently removed, Master. Sahar and I both enjoy bald cunts for our sex, and I see no need to keep shaving it. In the alternative, I could go for waxing if you'd like me to have some ability to grow it back. I'm willing to have one larger tattoo or two smaller ones, to be agreed on by you and Sahar, and slave piercings to my nipples, genitals, and perhaps tongue, and again, those would have to meet the approval of my wife, since she has to live with them too. When I agreed to become your slave permanently, those things that I held onto because I was yours only temporarily, no longer applied. I'm willing to let you mark me, sir, so that the world knows my relationship to you, although I understand I might need to keep them hidden for Miranda's sake."

"Hmm, Sahar and I will have to peruse some tattoo designs and slave jewelry to see if we can agree on what's suitable."

"Since we're going to be in Los Angeles in a week, Master, I'd like to have it done at Brianna's Baubles if possible, so you can see it done before you leave, especially as I understand it might be three days before I can have sex again."

"Three days," Sahar said. "You expect to go three days without fucking me?"

"No, dear. You can't fuck me. I can still lick you unless I get my tongue pierced. Then, you might have to go three days, perhaps longer."

"There's an argument against tongue piercing right there," Sahar said.

"If I do get my tongue pierced, you may enjoy my cunt licking and cock sucking more."

"Fuck the cock sucking. I don't have one anyway. Joshua can fend for himself. But if it could improve your already excellent cunt licking, then I might have to rethink my initial opposition."

"Other people can still fuck you. I don't expect you to be celibate."

"Sounding better and better. I'd like to try having sex with someone who already has a piercing. It might make a difference in my decision."

"I'm sure Brianna has some slaves who have them. We'll get you laid by one."

"Fine, we'll check some things out and let you know. I'm sure Joshua and I will have some time to ponder decorations for you."

******

I joined Maahnoor in her cabin. She wasn't watching the kids tonight, Ateefah was on kid duty.

"Do you sleep naked?" I asked. I was naked and hadn't brought any clothes with me, which could be a problem.

"I do."

"Will you get ill if I sleep naked with you?"

"Only if I think about sex with you, and I probably will to start. I hadn't thought of sex with a woman for awhile, until today, when you told me Ateefah had thought about sex with me. It took me about fifteen minutes to put it out of my mind."

"I've never tried sleeping naked without thinking about sex," I said. "It might be interesting."

"Your hypnotic suggestion allows you to have sex with your Master and Sahar?"

"And anyone Sahar gives me permission to have sex with, which could be anyone. It's her decision though, not mine, although she's usually pretty good about giving it if it's someone I want or need to have sex with."

"Need?"

"Like the Sailor of the Week or Month. My sister slaves. People I really care about. She gave me permission to fuck Ranger. We both fucked him quite a bit when he was here. He was the second male Sahar had sex with after being freed. Lynn's son, Richard was the first. They were both submissive males, so it was easier for her to have sex with them, than a regular guy, because they'd do what she wanted."

"Do you like being married to a woman?"

"If a woman was the only person I could have sex with, I probably couldn't marry a woman. I need males for sex too. Given I get plenty of sex with men, I love being married to Sahar. I love her a great deal."

"You are always, what's the word?"

"Talking smack, nattering at each other, acting as if we're arguing?"

"Yes, talking smack. You sound as if you're arguing, but you're really not. It's like playful arguing."

"We do that a lot. We got in the habit of doing so in The Bahamas, where she was breaking me of my slave conditioning, once I stopped begging for sex or begging not to be beaten. She was constantly bossing me around, and after I stopped begging, we started the verbal sparring instead. I like it. It's playful."

"How come you don't get jealous?"

"I'm not sure, although I think it's related to my submissive nature. Even though you were a slave, you weren't submissive. It wasn't part of who you were. It was a forced slavery. I am submissive. I like being in service to someone, and part of that service is to give someone pleasure. Seeing someone receive pleasure makes me feel good. Whether or not I'm responsible for that pleasure doesn't matter to me. So seeing my Master receive pleasure from Miranda, is just as rewarding as him receiving pleasure from me. It made my Master happy, so it makes me happy. The same applies to the other people I love. I like seeing them happy. I don't really care about the source of their happiness."

"I like seeing Henry happy."

"But it matters to you who gives it. I think a lot of jealousy is related to fear. If Henry enjoys sex with someone else, won't he want to leave me and be with that other person? Won't my marriage break up? Won't I be alone with the baby? What if he likes someone more than me? I'm not afraid of that. In fact, I encouraged Master to marry Miranda. As long as she was willing to share her husband with me, because I loved him too, it didn't matter who was married to him. If I don't care if Master has sex with someone else, and they don't want to take him away from me, why would he give me up. He can have sex with anyone, and I don't care, and he still gets to have sex with me.

"Sahar can have sex with anyone, and I don't care, and she still gets to have sex with me. Why would she want to change partners if I don't care who she has sex with. What if the partner she changed to, wouldn't let her have sex with anyone else? So why change? I'm not afraid, so fear does not equate to jealousy. If I'm a good partner, and she likes being with me, and she still gets to have sex with anyone, why would she switch. But even if she wanted to leave me, and be with someone else, I want Sahar to be happy. If leaving me and loving someone else makes her happy, then that's what I want for her; to be happy, even if it's no longer me, so I'm not afraid, even of that. Do you see?"

"Are you saying if I wasn't afraid of Henry leaving me, I could be like you?"

"Perhaps, but it's tied into my entire belief system, and my feelings of submission and subservience. You have to completely surrender your whole ego to the idea of someone else's happiness. Their joy has to be more important than your joy. To a certain extent, you do it with your children. You're willing to sacrifice yourself for your children. It's harder to do for anyone else. Unless you can take joy from someone else's happiness, it's hard to surrender your own happiness for someone else. If I became sad if Sahar left me for someone who made her happier, I'd be afraid too. But while I would be unhappy if she left me, I'd also be happy that she found someone who made her feel better than I did. Not everyone can do that. If you could watch Henry have sex with someone else, and be happy about it, you might be able to be like me, but if the thought makes you fearful, it's unlikely. Jealousy is a powerful emotion."

"Do you think we'll ever be normal?"

"If by normal, you mean be the same as you were before you were enslaved, then I'd say no. You can't go through something like that in your life and be unchanged. The best you can hope for is that you don't let it form all your future decisions. If you are now afraid to go out, to live a somewhat regular life, you still need to be treated. When you've worked to get to where you can live your life almost normally, that's probably the best you'll get. For one thing, when you get close to normal, the work to get more normal isn't worth the effort you put into it. It's hard work trying to put it all behind you, and once you get close, you won't want to put more effort into it. So you might work to become deadly, like Sahar did, to know that she was never going to be taken again without killing a lot of bastards who were trying to take her, and die in the attempt. She couldn't go back, ever again. It's what drove her. She can't unlearn those skills, so she can't be normal in the usual sense. She will always be deadly, more so than most men, and almost all women. She can become more gentle, less hard, less quick to judge, but not normal. That she can show any affection at all, is good.

"You will have additional problems you haven't experienced yet. To a certain extent, being on this ship has inoculated you from some things. You've gotten exposed to western culture, without being fully immersed in it. And you still had your fellow slaves and Muslims to help you get through the culture shock. When this voyage is ended, a lot more will change for you. You'll be leaving the safety of this ship, and be plunked down in the middle of chaos. A big city, with the constant bombardment of TV, advertising, radio, movies, millions of people, lots of them different. It will be hard to maintain your ties and closeness with your sister slaves. You might continue to see them in treatment, depending on where you all go for it."

"Wouldn't you remain our counselor?"

"I'm not licensed to practice. I've been your counselor and group leader because you had no other choice. I haven't even graduated from college yet. The ship is going to New York. I have to go to Florida to finish school, a thousand miles away. Some of the people may go on to different jobs and leave Joshua. So perhaps James gets a new job in LA, and Henry gets a job in Europe. You can't know all of the changes that will occur, so it will be very scary for you. Even if everyone stays with Joshua, you'll live in your own apartments or home and it may not be close to where someone else lives. You can't walk down the hallway and see Hibbah, Yasmine and Farah. You'll need to learn to drive, put your kids in school, find work, make a living. Like I said, it will be chaos when the trip is over, and a lot will be hitting you all at once."

"You're making the idea of getting a house with James and Ateefah sound more appealing."

"It will be scary."

"Perhaps we should talk about some of this in group," Maahnoor said. "I don't think anyone has thought about what happens when we leave the ship."

"We can definitely talk about it. I want you to know that I, and Joshua, and Hannah, as his personal assistant will help as much as we can. You'll get job training, help finding jobs, help learning to drive. Hibbah wanted to go into medicine. She'll get help doing that. She'll probably need to pass a high school equivalency to get further training. Farah wanted to get into flying; she'll get help with that. You won't be abandoned, it will just be different. If you want to go to school or learn some skill, you'll get help. Once you were saved and we decided to keep you, we assumed some responsibility for seeing to your future. We won't dump you on the pier and say, 'good luck, honey.' It will get figured out."

"I'm certainly glad you decided to spend time with me. I haven't considered any of this. I was thinking this would go on forever."

"Tell me about it. I'm dreading the time I have to wear clothes full time. What a drag."

Maahnoor laughed. "Join me in bed," she said, pulling back the covers. I got into bed beside her, and seeing her nude form, imagined myself having sex with her, beginning to feel ill.

"Do you feel sick too?" Maahnoor asked.

"Yes. I'm thinking of sex with you," admitting to my lust. I lay on my back and stared up at the ceiling, waiting for the nausea to go away.

"If I've never said so before, thank you for all you've done for us."

"You're welcome. I enjoy helping people."

"You've certainly helped me, helped all of us. I know the others appreciate it too."

Apparently, what I did in my sleep, was not affected by my hypnotic conditioning. I had no trouble snuggling up against Maahnoor's nude body during the night.

******

Henry woke us up the next morning, as Maahnoor had baby duty today, and watched the two of us climb out of the bed nude. He didn't say anything but I could see he had questions.

"We didn't have sex. Both of us got sick to our stomach even imagining it."

He nodded in relief. "If you can't even imagine Maahnoor having sex with me without an issue, you'll never be happy with her having sex with another man. It's definitely worse for a guy than sex with a woman would be. Most of you horny bastards would love to watch two women. We're going to start talking about some things other than our past trauma in group today. I want all of the men married to or involved with freed slaves except the Captain to join our group. Speak to the others please about being there at 1400. Leo might be the only exception if Master needs to be flown around."

"What are you going to talk about?"

"Future trauma. All of the ex-slaves leaving the ship when we get to New York."

"Why is that future trauma?"

"You'll find out at group. Believe me, it will. You need to be ready for it."

"Aye, aye," Henry said.

I said good bye to Doctor Sadiq and Felicity before they left. I'd even put on clothes, since we were now in port. Master and Hannah had meetings with the City of Seattle in the morning, on board, and the State of Washington in the afternoon, a short flight away in Olympia. Miranda was leaving this afternoon, and Master was dropping her at SeaTac airport on the way to Olympia. Frank, Marilyn, Björn and Yasmine were all out shopping. Everybody was dressed in the gym, conscious of the official guests arriving.

"Did you enjoy your stay with Maahnoor?" Sahar asked, putting me in a forty pound pack again.

"Yes, we discovered more we need to talk about in group. It won't affect you as much, but it will everyone else but Yasmine."

"I can guess why it wouldn't affect me, since I'll be hanging around with you, but why not Yasmine?"

"Because of her submission to Björn. He'll look after her and see that she gets what she needs. The others will be confused as hell. The guys need to know what's coming so they're prepared for it. They'll be joining us, so we won't be talking about slave issues. Did you enjoy your time with Master?"

"Yes. He really is a damn good lover, and he doesn't try pushing me around at all. The three of us did pretty well together."

"He probably knows what's good for his health."

Sahar laughed. "Wise man."

"I haven't done Hogan's Alley in a while. I'll probably try doing it when I'm tired and worn out."

Sahar kissed me and started the treadmill. I started running.

******

"Okay, everyone, a sea change is coming and everyone needs to be prepared," I said, "which is why all you guys are in group today."

"What kind of sea change?" Jake asked.

"Since the ex-slaves were freed, all they've known is this ship. With the exception of Fatima, all of the remaining slaves were raised in monolithic Muslim cultures, most of them unexposed to western society at all, some of them from small villages. They've gotten exposure to the West through all of you, but nothing like the wall they'll be crashing into in New York City, a major metropolitan area of millions of people, from all over. They don't know how to drive, have never used public transportation, modern banking systems, been inundated with TV, radio, movies, horrible traffic, rude drivers, and rude people. Hibbah never attended school past the equivalent of the sixth grade, and I'm unsure of the others. The only job skills they've developed were those on the ship. They may have never ordered food in a restaurant, because the men of their culture usually did it for them. The two mothers in the group have never used child care services, or baby sitters because family handled those things, and are unfamiliar with US school systems. They probably need birth certificates to get a driver's license, need to be taught how to drive, how to use a subway or bus, and otherwise, navigate modern society, without a fucking clue of what's waiting for them out there.

"American money is foreign to them. The American legal system is foreign to them. They won't know how to look for homes or apartments, sign a lease, sign a contract, avoid scams and frauds. They won't know how to call a plumber or electrician, or A/C mechanic if they have a problem, and what constitutes a problem and isn't something simple like a blown circuit breaker. If you don't have washers or dryers at home, how to use a laundromat. You men are going to be swamped with questions, if not dealing with complete mental breakdowns. It will be total chaos, people, and you need to prepare now.