Changed Circumstances

By: Jean-Christophe
(© 2011-2013 by the author)

The author retains all rights. No reproductions are allowed without the author's consent. Comments are appreciated at...

Chapter 53
Francois Fournier:

Visions of my former boyhood friend, Lucien Barrois toiling as the naked slave Rafe haunt me. They fill my waking hours and disturb my sleep. It all seems so unfair!

Lucien and I had been friends at school and we'd rowed together in the school team. And we'd spent time in each other's company during our school vacations. He was a frequent visitor to my home and I fondly remember the happy days I'd spent with him at La Forõ€'˜.

Lucien's grandparents had always made me feel most welcome at La Forõ€'˜ and I remember them as 'old world' aristocracy whose very world was centred on their orphaned grandson, Lucien. It would be fair to say that Lucien stood at the centre of their universe. He was their 'raison d'etre'.

And I knew them to being scrupulously upright and honest in all their dealings with others. No breath of scandal ever sullied their illustrious name. That is until their beloved grandson, Lucien was adjudged to be slave born and cast into bitter servitude at the instigation of Charlotte Maratier (formerly Barrois). How glad I am that they weren't alive to witness this unhappy event. It would have shattered them and broken their hearts.

To my shame, when I'd heard about Lucien's changed circumstances, I'd not given it the attention I should have done. I recall the news did distress me but at the time I was heavily involved in my family's business affairs and so Lucien just drifted out of my consciousness.

It wasn't that Lucien and I were as close as we'd once been. During our adolescent and late teen- aged years we'd just drifted apart. There weren't any arguments or disagreements between us; rather it was a divergence of interests that saw us go our separate ways. I knew that Lucien had remained close friends with three of our former schoolmates, Miles Fortescue, Jack Stanford and Daniel Carew.

The four had been inseparable and although I was friends with all four, I'd never been a member of their close, inner circle.

And there was another factor at play in my friendship with Lucien. Guiltily, I'd always been sexually attracted to him. Often, I recall our rowing sessions and the lustful thoughts I'd harboured towards him. He never knew the affect he had upon me. Even now, as I think about him, I can see his sweat soaked singlet and shorts clinging closely to the contours of his youthful body and smell the heady aroma of his perspiration which acted as an aphrodisiac on my senses.

Oh, how I'd salivated over the sight of his heaving chest after a strenuous rowing session and watched guiltily as he stripped naked in the changing rooms. Always, I connived to share the same shower with him so that I could surreptitiously spy upon his nakedness. And always I had to fight the temptation to reach out and touch him.

Even as a burgeoning teenager, Lucien was a delight to the eye; his adolescent body gave ample promise of the man he would eventually become. His broad-shoulders and manly chest appealed to me but not as much as the delicious curves of his ass or his well-endowed cock and the heavy, pendulous balls which swung freely between his muscular thighs.

We were both on the verge of sexual maturity and inevitably our showering together degenerated into boisterous horseplay as we wrestled one another in the steamy environment of the shower- room. As our soap-slicked bodies slip-slithered against each other under the cascading water, my sexual fantasies about Lucien intensified. Inevitably our bodily friction would see us both massively aroused and, covered in the red flush of our mutual embarrassment, we'd pull apart and continue to shower in silence.

Lucien never gave an indication of his sexual proclivities and I never knew if he ever lusted after me. I was fearful of losing his friendship or even worse - of earning his contempt for my blossoming homosexuality - and so I concealed my true feelings from him.

But many times over the intervening years I have wondered about Lucien's sexual orientation and wondered wistfully - what if?

My love for Lucien was unrequited and remains with me to this day!

Occasionally we did meet - at some social function - and my heart would skip a beat as we warmly embraced. The feel of his hard body pressed against my own was exquisite torture. At those times my suppressed feelings for him would resurface but remained carefully hidden from him.

And Lucien's adolescent promise was more than fulfilled. I know it isn't usual to describe a man as beautiful but to have said Lucien was handsome would be to do him an injustice. Lucien was in every sense a very beautiful, young man.

He retained something of his boyish charm and innocence and I thought these were his most endearing qualities. Lucien was an 'open book' and he was without guile. I loved the way his mid- blond, longish hair flopped down over his forehead and complemented the brilliant blue of his eyes and his lustrous, ruby-red lips. How I ached to feel those lips pressing against my own hungry ones.

And it had wounded me the first time I saw Lucien as the slave Rafe. I was heartsick at the sight of him yoked naked and filthy to another slave and made to pull a heavy dray of gravel from my quarry to the gardens at La Forõ€'˜. It was as though an arrow had pierced me.

I have never met Guy Maratier - indeed I have no wish to - and I see him as the usurper of Lucien's birth right. But I know it would be unfair of me to blame him entirely for what befell Lucien. I know the claim of Lucien's slave origins wasn't his doing. It was the machinations of his grandmother, Charlotte Maratier that had seen my former friend enslaved. If what I have heard is true, then it is doubtful if Guy Maratier would have had the initiative to instigate the case against Lucien.

I'm ashamed to admit that I'd not paid any more than passing attention to the tumultuous events taking place within the former Barrois Empire. Through the local grapevine, I'd heard that Guy Maratier and his son Etienne regularly visited La Forõ€'˜ but I'd never seen them so they were strangers to me.

Therefore it came as a surprise when Claymore Jackson, La Forõ€'˜'s very capable chief overseer had contacted me personally and asked if I could supply several loads of gravel for the use within the plantation's gardens.

Claymore is well-known to me from the days when I'd visited La Forõ€'˜. As a boy, together with Lucien, I'd spent much time in his company. He'd always shown great affection towards Lucien - the boy - and some of that had extended to me. Consequently, I am fond of Claymore and hold him in high respect. And naturally, I'd agreed to sell him the gravel and to personally oversee its delivery.

I was present when the La Forõ€'˜ dray made its first trip to the quarry and I had watched as the team of heavy duty draft slaves rested as my slaves loaded it up for its return journey.

I'd not taken any notice of the naked drafts; all slaves appear the same to the casual observer. I suppose there is anonymity for a slave in his nudity and besides one doesn't normally show an interest in a slave - especially if he is a draft animal.

I'd been approached by a young overseer who'd been placed in charge of the team of drafts and its dray. I was surprised by his youth; I estimated he couldn't have been older than seventeen and I was correct. He introduced himself to me as Conn and explained that he was an apprentice overseer at La Forõ€'˜. He told me he'd been given the position by Lucien Barrois shortly before his enslavement.

The irony of this situation wasn't lost on me. Sadly, it occurred to me that Lucien was now subject to this young teenager's authority and his whip.

Conn impressed me with his maturity and so I asked about Rafe. I was sure that Conn would know what had befallen my former friend. He told me that Rafe now works at La Forõ€'˜ and had done so for the past few months. Guiltily, I chided myself that Rafe was working close by and in my indifference I'd not taken the time to enquire after him. I asked for more detail and was distressed to hear that Rafe had worked as a beast of burden on a water pump supplying water to the plantation's gardens.

Conn went on to tell me that Rafe was currently undergoing training to prepare him for his role as one of Guy Maratier's two ponies. The thought of this did upset me. I had visions of Rafe running naked under the whip through the streets of the city where he'd once been respected as a member of the Barrois family.

But I was even more distressed when Conn laughingly told me that, as part of his ongoing pony training, Rafe was one of the naked, yoked slaves harnessed to his dray.

Shocked by this, I glanced over at the miserable wretches as they recovered from the exertion of pulling the empty dray from La Forõ€'˜ to the quarries. Obviously, they were distressed and they showed it. Slumped over their pushing-bars with their shoulders weighed down by the heavy wooden yokes, their sweat-streaked bodies heaved as their oxygen starved lungs replenished themselves.

I tried to identify Rafe from among their number; but this proved impossible. With their naked bodies coated in sweat-streaked dust and with their close cropped heads and bearded faces, each slave was indistinguishable from his team mate.

Shaken by the revelation that Lucien was among their number and accompanied by their overseer, Conn, I approached the team of heavy duty draft slaves.

Perhaps it was the knowledge that one I'd known since boyhood was now a slave among them but that morning, for the first time, I understood man's inhumanity to his fellow man. With sickening reality, I saw a free man's indifference to the plight and suffering of his enslaved brethren. The realisation of this was as punch to the stomach.

As we approached, one or two slaves nervously looked up at us but quickly averted their eyes; their fear of causing offence to their 'betters' was all too obvious.

The sun-darkened, sweat streaked bodies reeked! The malodorous state of the slaves was an affront to every concept of human dignity. But I realised that I, in common with all other slave-owners, had deliberately robbed our slaves of every skerrick of their humanity. To salve our consciences and to fatten our purses, we'd relegated them to the status of animals indistinguishable from any other of our domestic livestock. Indeed we'd gone further and reduced them to the lowest level; we prized our dogs and horses more highly than we valued our slaves.

It is our cruel indifference to the plight of the individual slave that makes possible our subjugation and exploitation of the enslaved masses. And in doing this, we, the free slave-owners, have negated our own humanity. Conveniently, our greed blinkers us and hides our culpability from our collective and individual consciousness.

I'd not seen this before and it was as though the scales had been removed from my eyes. Indeed, I'd never considered the plight of my family's slaves before. It had taken the realisation that my friend, Lucien Barrois had been reduced to base slavery to awaken my compassion.

Horrified, I looked at the ranks of naked, abused bodies bent under the weight of their impossibly heavy, wooden yokes. I saw the striped backs and asses of these miserable wretches. I watched as they were tormented by swarms of flies and other insects attracted to them by their stench and filth encrusted bodies. I watched their vain attempts to be free of these pests by the shaking of their bodies and the stamping of their feet.

I looked on as their sweat dripped from their stressed bodies onto the quarry floor darkening the soil beneath them. I imagined their parched throats, their dry mouths and tongues swollen by thirst. I was overwhelmed by their suffering. This was a new sensation for me and was only made possible by my understanding that my friend Lucien Barrois suffered with them as the slave Rafe.

I was moved by compassion to ask Conn if I could have my slaves water his team. He seemed reluctant at first; it was almost as though he disapproved of my concern for the slaves under his control. Perhaps, he saw my request as impertinent; after all it's an unwritten law that a man never interferes with another man's treatment of his slaves. And possibly, he saw my request as an oblique criticism of his handling of the team. At first, I thought he was about to refuse but for whatever reason he finally agreed.

I called for my water-bearers to fetch water and I watched the pitiful scenes as La Forõ€'˜'s slaves greedily gulped down the cooling balm to replace the moisture they lost through their copious sweating. Left to their own devices the slaves would have swallowed pints of the precious fluid. But Conn, perhaps to prove to me that he was still in control, limited their intake to just a few mouthfuls each. In doing so he told me.

"I don't want their bellies overloaded for the return trip back to La Forõ€'˜. Too much water sloshing around inside of them only makes them sluggish."

I was dismayed at the apprentice overseer's callous indifference to his charges. Barely seventeen, he already had all the hallmarks of a stern taskmaster. I would hate to be a slave under his jurisdiction.

I watched as my water bearers moved from one yoked pair to another hoping to recognise Rafe.

Then I saw him!

Or to be more accurate, it was the young overseer who drew my attention to Rafe.

"Hey, Dumb ass! I have a former friend of yours asking after you."

I sensed Rafe's embarrassment at my presence as he stood mute with his eyes downcast.

"I spoke to you Dumb ass! I said you have a former friend asking after you. Lift your head so he can see you. LOOK UP BOY!"

To gain Rafe's attention, Conn used the handle of his whip to humiliatingly slap the slave's ass. As the loud 'thwack' echoed around the quarry, Rafe quickly raised his head. Shamed, by my presence, his pain-filled eyes looked briefly into mine before he respectfully lowered them once more to the ground.

My embarrassment surely matched Rafe's own. In my confusion, I blurted out.

"Of course, I knew him as Lucien. Conn, what name did you say his Master has given him?"

"He's now called Rafe! I believed his Master called him after a mongrel dog he owned as a boy. But I call him Dumb ass. I think that name suits him better."

The bile caught in my throat and tasted bitter in my mouth as I thought about this ultimate insult to the once proud, aristocratic Lucien Barrois. In naming him after a mongrel dog, the Maratier's had added a few more ounces to the pound of flesh they'd extracted from the carcass of the noble Barrois family.

My water-carriers moved forward and held the water bag aloft for Rafe's fellow slave to drink.

As his yoke-mate greedily swallowed the cooling balm, Rafe impatiently waited for his turn. Imploringly, he reached out his arms and through his parched lips begged.

"Water! Please Sir, give me water!"

For his temerity in speaking out, Conn snapped his whip across Rafe's ass.

"Shut up, Dumb ass! Or you'll not be allowed to drink."

My heart broke to see my one time friend, Lucien reduced to such dire straits. My blood boiled with anger at the injustice done to Rafe and I seethed with indignation at the cruel treatment of him by his supremely confident, teenaged overseer.

Rafe ignored my presence - perhaps it was his acceptance of himself as a slave and his suffering which prevented him from doing so but there was no further recognition of me on his part.

Undoubtedly, Rafe knew that he could no longer speak out of turn to a free man and had chosen to remain silent. I wondered if he felt shame and I supposed that he must. I placed myself in Rafe's position and tried to imagine his feelings. But that was beyond my meagre imagination.

It was impossible for me to put myself in Rafe's place. How could I even begin to know how it felt to be stripped naked, collared, branded, cruelly abused and worked to the limits of my physical strength? As I looked at the naked, grime-encrusted body of my former friend, I felt a little of his shame. As I looked at his cropped head and stubbled countenance, I saw his pain mirrored in his eyes which had lost their cornflower blue lustre and were now dulled with his humiliation and suffering.

And yet beneath his filth and degradation, I thought I saw something of the old Lucien. Was it my imagination or did I see vestiges of his proud Barrois heritage? And I thought I recognised in Rafe the noble bearing of his illustrious ancestors.

Out of my respect for his feelings, I chose not to speak to Rafe and to ignore his presence in the team. In doing that I was troubled; would Rafe see this as a repudiation of our friendship and a betrayal of the closeness which we'd once shared.

I wasn't to know that Rafe had already suffered such betrayal at the hands of his three closest, boyhood friends, Miles Fortescue, Jack Stanford and Daniel Carew. I wasn't aware of his encounter with them at the slave-market where his new Master had taken him to be appraised and valued by the odious Lionel Schuster.

Their rejection and treatment of him had wounded him deeply and if he could talk to me, he'd tell me the hurt of their rebuffs still lingered.

And in choosing not to speak to Rafe, I added yet another arrow wound to those of Miles, Jack and Daniel which had pierced his heart.

And shame stopped me from speaking to Rafe!

But the greater shame wasn't Rafe's - it was mine. I'd done nothing to support him in his moments of blackest despair. I'd ignored his plight and left him to suffer alone; I knew nothing of Norge or of his love and support of Rafe. I would learn of Norge's noble character later from Rafe himself. My conscience troubled me at the thoughtless indifference I'd shown to one I'd once considered my friend.

As the team was watered, my slaves had quickly loaded the dray and Conn wasted no time in whipping his charges into action for the return to La Forõ€'˜. I watched as the slaves strained into their yokes and harness and struggled up the steep incline leading from the quarry floor to the roadway. I heard the loud, abusive shouting of Conn and his assistant and the staccato cracking of their whips urging the slaves into even more superhuman - almost unsustainable - effort.

This left me visibly shaken and I retired to my office where I spent the remainder of the day contemplating Rafe's unhappy fate. Many times, I was moved to tears as I thought of him struggling in the team. I was aware that the team and its dray returned for more gravel throughout the day but I couldn't face seeing Rafe again and so I kept my distance from him.

But that doesn't mean I didn't think about Rafe. I did and he was uppermost in my thoughts from then on. My encounter with Rafe that morning proved to be a catalyst. The more I thought of Rafe, the more obsessed I became with his fate. My sense of my own guilt at initially ignoring his fate gnawed at me until I could no longer ignore it.

Memories of my childhood spent with Lucien at La Forõ€'˜ were never far from my mind. My days were filled with reminisces of happier days spent with him and my nights were haunted by the dreadful fate that had befallen him.

As I dwelt on Rafe and his fate, the more I became determined to do something about it. But what could I do? There seemed to be few options open to me. Rafe was a court-sentenced slave and I couldn't change that.

Initially, my thoughts centred on buying Rafe and setting him free. But what would happen to him then? He'd lost all his possessions and as a free man he'd be homeless and penniless. Of course, I could always employ Lucien to work for my family. This would give him an income and perhaps restore his sense of self-worth. But that was for the future.

Before then, I had to somehow set Rafe free!

At first, I saw this as my only option and I became excited - to the point of obsession - with buying Rafe from Guy Maratier and then manumitting him. But practicality asserted itself over my initial enthusiasm and I began to see the problems associated with this as my solution.

My common-sense told me there were two issues that I'd have to address in my efforts to free Rafe. The first - and the most pressing one - was the Maratier need for revenge against the Barrois family. I didn't know Guy Maratier personally but it was common knowledge that the prime motivator behind this need for revenge was his grandmother, Charlotte Maratier. And if the rumours were true, then it was extremely doubtful that she'd agree to anything that remotely suggested freedom for the hated Lucien Barrois. So that seemed an insurmountable problem.

And the second issue - while not as great - was nevertheless one I had to address. And that was Rafe's value as a slave. The circumstances behind Rafe becoming a slave had given him a certain notoriety that had added immensely to his value. In all probability, he is the most expensive slave in the city and there are many who'd pay a fortune for the privilege of owning him. His true monetary worth is immeasurable and sadly I realised it would be beyond my limited resources.

I doubt very much that my father or brothers would support me in my efforts to free Rafe. Like all others, they'd shown great interest in Lucien's fall from grace but once the initial outrage had waned they'd thought no more of him. To them he was just another slave.

So what was I to do?

Then, I remembered Lucien's three schoolboy friends, Miles, Jack and Daniel. If I could enlist their support then perhaps - just perhaps - we could help Rafe. Possibly, the joint pooling of our money and resources could achieve more than my 'go it alone' efforts.

But how did I make this approach to Lucien's former friends. Whilst I knew them, we were never close and apart from the occasional encounters at school reunions, I'd had little to do with them since our schooldays.

I recalled that of the three, Miles was the most level-headed and astute. I knew he'd also been a close friend of Lucien's and that he was the natural leader of the three. I remembered that Jack was also a practical person but Daniel was more of a scatterbrain and easily persuaded.

So it seemed prudent for me to make my initial approach to Miles. I contacted him and we met at a quiet tavern for a meal and drinks where I told him of my encounter with Rafe and of my feelings of distress at his plight.

He, in turn, told me of his similar feelings and I felt a new bond grow between us. This bond was made strong by our mutual affection for our former friend, Lucien Barrois.

Then Miles told me of his first encounter with Rafe the slave at Lionel Schuster's slave-market where he, Jack and Daniel had been witnesses to Rafe's appraisal and valuation. He told me at first he'd treated Rafe badly and how he and his two friends had ridiculed and jeered at him. He told me he is now constantly plagued with visions of that occasion and how the haunted, fearful look in Rafe's eyes is a perpetual reminder of his unthinking callousness.

Miles went on to tell me how, during Lionel Schuster's mandatory testing for the new slave's physical strength and endurance, he'd been distressed by Rafe's suffering and how he had taken it upon himself to give the slave water to drink which had greatly upset the slave-dealer. He told me of the tawdry game of chance they'd played - guessing the length of Rafe's tongue
- in which the prize was Rafe's mouth and how all three had been invited by Guy Maratier to his home where Rafe had been made to kneel before them and service their cocks with his mouth.

Tearfully, Miles told me he was stricken with guilt by all this. And I believed him; as he shed tears for his crass betrayal of his best friend, I could see his true remorse. In some ways Miles' feelings perfectly matched my own. We both needed to make amends to Lucien but even more we needed to beg for Rafe's forgiveness.

Our talk was cathartic. In baring our souls to one another and in confessing our common feelings of guilt we found solace in one another's company. The tears we shed together for Rafe helped us to bond and these in turn strengthened our determination and resolve to help our friend Lucien Barrois.

In talking to Miles, I found a friend and an ally in my efforts to help Rafe. As we locked in a farewell embrace, Miles told me he would talk to both Jack and Daniel and that all four of us would meet soon to devise strategies to rescue Rafe.

To be continued...

Posted: 04/12/13