Under The Yoke

This image (Les Romans passant sous le joug, by Charles Gleyre 1806 - 1874) is free of known copyright restrictions. Modified by Patheticus Minimus using Fotosketcher

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I am part of an ignominious coffle of male slaves, being driven through some of the remoter parts of the Gynarchy towards the dusty, regional, southern capital of Virgina where we will be auctioned off to the highest female bidders.

I say ‘driven’, but I, of course, mean that we are travelling overland on bare foot, ‘driven’ on by the whips of our horse-riding taskmistresses. Our maleslave-necks and arms are surrounded by a long, thick, yoke which secures us to the slave in front and behind. It chafes. I am somewhere in the middle of the coffle (believe me, no-one wants to be at the front or end of the coffle, as they receive the most lashes for allegedly ‘dawdling’, and not setting a fast enough pace!)

That doesn’t mean my bare back and shoulders remain untouched by the whip; indeed, one of the taskmistresses – a tall, blonde-haired lady with long, chunky-heeled and dusty-toed, black leather, zip-up kneeboots – seems to have taken a particular dislike towards me, perhaps because I am one of the oldest and therefore weakest, and less valuable, slaves in the line, and is forever belabouring my back with her stinging, single-tailed, black leather cowhide whip!

I know her rounded boot-toes are dusty because she requires me to kiss them and lickshine during each of our rest stops along the way i.e. the stops which allow our taskmistresses to rest and relax, and refuel with food and water etc. If it were just we slaves to worry about we would be driven on without any stopping – reinvigorated as and when necessary by the stimulus of the whip!

All along the route, women, and free men, come out of their houses to point and laugh at us. Some even hit us on our aching, bare legs with sticks as they wish to ‘help’ our taskmistresses in their prized job of delivering more male slaves to the market. The free, civilian populace also spit on us, by way of demonstrating their contempt for the enslaved.

But they are not innately cruel people – for they offer free food and drink to our tired and thirsty taskmistresses, asking for nothing more than their autographs in return, or, possibly, to have their pictures taken standing beside the taskmistresses, and the dirty, sweating coffle of male slaves. For such photographs we slaves must bow our heads and look down at the dusty boots and shoes of our betters (i.e. of our taskmistresses and civilian mockers alike); we must never smile into the camera or even look directly towards it, but looking glumly down is not difficult to do since the heavy, communal cangue forces us to bow the neck anyway.

Needless to say, the villagers and townspeople don’t waste any of their food and drink on us – the coffle slaves – since they wouldn’t wish to alleviate our suffering in any way. We are kept alive by a daily ration of nutrient-rich, but tasteless slave-mush. If we are dragging our heels in the coffle we are punished with bitter-tasting, punishment slave-mush instead – so that, together with the constant bite of the taskmistresses’ whips, is generally enough to make us move swiftly along.

After three days and nights we eventually arrive at our destination – the slave-market in the southern township of Virgina. Here we are cleaned up; put into individual yokes (a blessed relief, even though the individual yokes are even heavier than the communal cangue – if that’s possible?!); and put up onto the slave-stage for auction.

The Virginal (?) ladies are entitled to inspect us for whipmarks and other deficiencies, before deciding what to bid for us. As I survey the sea of cruelly smiling female, and male, faces in front of me, I hope and pray for a kindly mistress (or mistress and master; a free man would never be permitted to bid for us on his own – but he may form part of a joint bid if he is either married, or in a relationship with, a free woman!)

My prayers are seemingly answered when a beautiful, young black woman in her early twenties bids for me (on her own), in a cute African accent, and, having run her dirty, unvarnished fingernails through my gaping whip-wounds, strenuously fights off several other bidders in order to secure me as her personal slave. She must think I’m worth something, therefore, even though, being one of the oldest slaves on offer, I go for a knockdown price.

Although we are now in the slave-beating heart of the city, my new mistress is dressed like a country girl in a cowgirl-like outfit consisting of a fetching, sky-blue and white waistcoat; a red and white patterned neckerchief (which looks much more gentle and comfortable than my own, ignominious, wooden neckwear!); and navy-blue, stonewashed denim jeans tucked into the V-shaped tops of a pair of calf-length, mud-stained, beige brown leather, chunky-heeled and fancily toe-stitched, cowgirl boots. It turns out that she actually owns a small farm outside the city; I come to know that only because I must run behind her horse-drawn cart to which my heavy cangue is attached by means of a long chain, all the way to her humble abode.

She seems to be in a hurry to get home before nightfall, because she drives her horse at a fairly smart pace, leaving me stumbling on occasions in my cut and chafed, bare slave-feet. But at least I’m not the one being whipped this time (the poor horse is subject to the whip!)

On arrival at her farmstead I am tethered in a pig-sty, still in my yoke, along with some dirty pigs, and told to share their slops. My cowgirl-booted mistress then informs me that she will ‘deal’ with me in the morning.

The other, unyoked pigs don’t seem too pleased at my efforts to share in their dirty slops – but I am so hungry I could eat a horse; even that poor, knackered horse that had been pulling my mistress’s cart, and myself, along the dusty, winding, country roads.

After a sleepless night in my heavy, uncomfortable yoke surrounded by swine, the door to the pigsty opens early in the morning, allowing in some welcome fresh air, but also heralding the arrival of my new mistress’s soiled, cowgirl boots.

I assume the natural slave-position – on my hands and knees in the pigsty mud, with my head suitably bowed by the heavy cangue – and await the arrival of my new farmgirl-mistress’s outstretched, right, chiselled, beige-brown leather, boot toe on the dirty ground directly beneath my face. It duly arrives, and I kiss it.

I then repeat the humiliating process with her left cowgirl-boot, admiring the V-shaped upper rim over her hardwearing, non-designer, blue denim jean-hems.

It is only now that I notice my pretty black mistress is carrying a coiled-up, brown leather, cowhide whip, similar to those used by our coffle-taskmistresses apart from its hue (the other animals had noticed, and scattered to the back of the pigsty as soon as she had come in; but they are more experienced pigs than me – I must learn from them!)

She joyfully christens me ‘Pig Slave’, because she says, in her cute African accent, that:

a) I look like a pig (or, at the very least, like an old boar)

b) I smell like a pig

c) I am (apparently) sweating like a pig

d) I am living with pigs

e) I am going to have to survive from now on on pig-slops, like the rest of her ‘herd’

However, because I am a human-pig, I shall have special duties around the farm. I am to be, it seems, her personal bootservant – responsible for the wellbeing and upkeep of her boots; and not just her brown cowgirl-boots (the ones she has on now; and had on yesterday); but also her black rubber, kneelength wellington boots, as well as her, non-farmworking footwear, including, she gleefully informs me, her scruffy, casual, low-top, grey and white, lace-up sneakers; her smart, spike-heeled and pointy-toed, black leather ‘dating’ ankleboots; and the socks she wears inside them.

My black African farmer-mistress then goes on to inform me that I may even get to wash and pedicure her dirty, bare feet from time to time – when she can afford to bathe her feet in scented oils, that is, since she explains she is just a poor smallholder, eking out something of a subsistence living in the Virginal Gynarchy bush.

I re-kiss her muddy, beige-brown leathery boot-toes and nevertheless reassure the mistress (and her coiled-up whip) that she is better, and much more high class, than me – a down-in-the-dirt, yoked footslave. But my well-intentioned remark backfires – causing fire to break out across my back – for she takes immediate umbrage at my comment, uncoils her brown leather, cowhide whip, and brings it swishing down upon my bare, kneeling back and shoulders whilst shouting in her thick, African accent that she knows full well that she is better than me; that even her other pigs know it; and how could she possibly not be my better – being young, beautiful and female, whereas I am old, ugly and male?!

Her raised, African voice, and the crack of the cowhide whip, temporarily frightens the other pigs – though I can’t believe that this sweet, young black-farmer woman would ever be so cruel as to whip her more valuable livestock?

I apologise to the mistress and blubber for mercy into her mud-stained, beige-brown leather cowgirl-boots which seems to placate her somewhat. She then orders me to follow her to muddy, blocky-heeled boot to her homestead, where, she informs me, I can begin my footslave-duties by first mouth, and then hand, washing a pile of her dirty, rancid bootsocks which have been gathering dust and stale footsweat inside her dirty laundry-basket whilst she saved up enough money to buy herself a new footslave – me!

After tasting, touching and smelling her dirty, stinky bootsocks for just one lonely hour, I almost wished I could return to the communal slave-coffle and re-enter the slave market. Even the pigs’ slops were tastier and more wholesome than my pretty mistress’s crisp, grey woollen, salt and vinegary, week-old, calf-length bootsocks!

I didn’t dare to ask my none-too-fastidious, but beautiful, black African farmgirl-mistress what her last footslave died of!