Someone opened the lid to the box. He braced himself for more torture but he felt the soothing touch of a hand helping him sit up. He tried to adjust his eyes only to see a white man. He had a plate of food and fed Charles with his dirty, bare hands. It was a humiliation the likes of which Charles had never contemplated before, to have be dependent upon the kindness of another man for his very survival. His mind flashed to an image of what Black men might have had to endure but he couldn’t hold the thought too long. He was too exhausted to fathom the concept that his experience was choreographed but actual slaves didn’t have a safe word, there was no reprieve at the end of a week, a month, a day, a decade, or a lifetime. The white man snapped him out of his daydream and said, “Dem ‘ooman dun fuh smaa’t. De buckruh dey whup baa.” It was almost beyond his comprehension how this white man was speaking that gibberish.
“Speak English, I don’t understand,” Charles pleaded. What the hell was wrong with him? Charles tried to comprehend what could have happened to him in order for him to start communicating in the language of these vicious people. He remembered the cryptic message on the Internet and realized that he had been reading some variation of what these people were speaking. Was this man aiding him one of the men that chose to stay? Why would anyone want to stay in this hell? Questions raced through his mind.
The man pulled a pouch from around his neck and put some soothing salve on Charles’ burns and put a container filled with fresh water in the coffin slamming the lid closed again. Charles licked what rice and turtle meat he could from his lips and tried his best to find some comfortable position in that tight, cramped space.
He was not to get much sleep as the women would take turns abusing him every couple of hours. The days ran together as his abuse rituals seemed to run together. One woman applied an electric cattle prod to his testicles and seemed amused at the sounds he made in response, at watching his body contort and tremble with pain. Another tied him to a tree and covered his body with honey as she let insects sting and bite him and left in him the oppressive sun like an ornament on a lynching Christmas tree. Once he was beaten on the bottoms of his feet until he passed out and they seemed to enjoy using his body as practice for their single tail whips, with which they were quite expert. He would be secured to a large boulder and made to hold his asscheeks apart while they aimed for the bull’s eye. The pain was so intense he knew that losing consciousness was his only chance to survive the sharp, stinging blows.
The women led him to the stables one day and made him lie on a bale of hay. A horse was brought out of the stalls and he thought for sure he was going to have to serve as the receptacle for his sperm in either his mouth or ass. Instead they removed the bit from the horse’s mouth and placed it directly into Charles’ mouth and hooked him to a plow. They made him work the fields like an animal, whipping him every time he faltered. The salt from his sweat stung the cuts on his back and the sun burned his pale flesh to a searing, hot red. His body wasn’t strong, he wasn’t muscular and well-built like African men so he fell often, unable to move the earth as he was instructed to do. Every muscle in his body was sore, every organ in his body suffered from the effects of malnourishment and dehydration. His flesh was covered in bruises where he had been beaten, paddled, and whipped. His cock hadn’t been hard in days, since he left the comfort of the big house.
Of course, he was raped every day. It was brutal and vicious and always with objects that could puncture his intestines and end his life, the handle of an axe, an empty bottle of wine, an oversized vegetable from the garden, whatever happened to be handy. He was always left bleeding from his rectum and his cock and balls endured more punishment than he’d thought possible. Metal sounds were shoved in his piss hole and heavy weights applied to his balls. It was as if the women were free to experiment on how much pain could inflict on his genitals short of castration. Many times, the Black bitches held the blade of a knife or a rusty razor to his nuts and threatened to make him a eunuch if he uttered a sound. In the back of his mind, he realized that under other circumstances he would have been getting pleasure from this treatment but at some point, he understood that this experience had nothing to do with sex. This was about the fear and horror of real enslavement. He remained silent, even in the face of his manhood being removed and decided to do whatever he had to do in order to live. That was his only goal– to live to another day with the hopes that he would be able to go home. Charles had become a real slave.
Sleep was at a premium as he was never allowed to get more than an hour at a time. By the fourth, or fifth day, the women stopped locking him in his coffin and wouldn’t put on his leg and wrist restraints. His friend would come nightly, giving him food and water to keep him alive; never uttering a word in English. Charles came to expect abuse as routine and the pain was transformed into something other than pleasurable, other than ache; he would leave his body in order to escape the sensations and a part of him died inside every day.
On day six, he was awakened with the sun and taken to a pond to bathe. The water was cold but it felt good. He was given lye soap and he washed his hair and body with the harsh smelling bar. It felt good to rid himself of the stink that oozed from his pores. Once finished, he was given a metal cup filled with oil to apply to his body. He did his best to rub it into every inch of his skin because he appreciated the luxury of the feel on his aching body. There was a pile of clothes for him to put on, pants, a shirt, and even shoes. He stood taller in his outfit, feeling superior to the handful of white men who were wearing their burlap frocks. Breakfast was plentiful. Fresh fruit, pancakes with syrup, eggs, bacon, toast, juice and coffee satisfied his appetite. He gorged himself so much he was afraid he would throw it all up.
By mid-morning, he was taken to the big house and led to the master bedroom. It was complete with all the Victorian drama of the period, a four-poster bed, a large fireplace, windows and a balcony that looked out over the property. He felt unworthy to sit on the furniture so he just stood, waiting for what he was sure was going to be an inspection or something by Mistress Emmanuelle.
“Have you enjoyed your stay thus far, Chuck,” she said, breezing into the room with melodramatic flair?
Charles couldn’t answer. He’s hated every second of the experience since he stepped on the boat but he was terrified that if he didn’t answer affirmatively he’d be subjected to harsh punishment more severe than anything he’d endured before. It was also the first time in days he’d heard his native tongue. His brain misfired and shut down. Emmanuelle took it in stride and continued on. “Take off your shirt, let me see your markings.”