Carla walked to the janitor and knelt before him. He stopped sweeping and leaned on the broom. Carla placed her forehead to the ground to indicate she was making a request and waited.
“What is it?” The janitor asked.
“Master,” she said quietly. “I need an obedience test. Do you have time to test me?”
It was morning, and her trip was delayed because Juma had found a loose axle pin in her cart which he wanted to repair first. Carla had decided to use the time to get her new chore over with. She hated having to ask these men to put her through her paces, but this would happen one way or another, and she couldn’t risk getting on Rafiki’s bad side. It was best to just get this over with.
He set the broom aside and started walking toward the back of the compound, where the carts were stored and the grounds were quieter, away from the main yard. “Follow me,” he ordered. Then, with a casual flick of his hand, “On all fours. Close. Keep up with my feet.”
A chill of dread crawled down Carla’s spine. She knew what was coming would not be pleasant. Reluctantly she shifted up onto her hands and knees, the dirt rough against her palms, her breasts swaying slightly with the movement. Carla crawled after him, staying within arm’s reach of his heels, her back arched to keep her head up.
As they moved, the janitor spoke without slowing. “My grandfather told me about this. It is useful to teach slaves. After doing this exercise regularly, slaves will walk more graciously. Because they have learned that walking upright is not a right but a privilege. A privilege that can be taken from them.”
Carla’s breath came in short bursts. Soon sweat already formed and ran from her hair into her eyes. She rubbed the corner of one eye against her upper arm, but she kept pace. The ground was uneven, pebbles biting into her palms. When the janitor stopped abruptly, she stopped next to him as well.
He looked down at her. “Your stopping position is the worship position. With your hands and head oriented to me. This is how you show that your heart and soul are oriented toward serving me, your Master.”
Carla scrambled to assume the worship position — forehead to the dirt, hands flat beside her head, bottom raised, waiting for what would come next. This was not what she had hoped her stay in a tropical country would turn out to be. She hoped he would hurry up so she could stand up again before she puked on his shoes.
He grunted approval and resumed walking.
They approached Juma, who was hammering the pin back into the axle.
The janitor stopped, and Carla assumed the worship position, keeping her head to the ground and as close to his shoes as she could without touching them.
Juma glanced up, wiping sweat from his brow. “Kwame, go easy on her. She’s got a long haul today. I don’t want her to be late on her deliveries.”
Kwame chuckled. “Fine, we’ll do the punishment test, and then you can have her back.”
“Good. And have her shower when you’re done with her. She needs to be clean when out with customers.”
“Will do, Juma.” He walked inside while Carla crawling behind him.
Inside a small storage shed at the back of the compound, Kwame closed the door. The air was cooler here, smelling of dust and oiled tools. He took a thin cane from a hook on the wall. “Punishment position.”
Carla rose to her knees, then turned perpendicular to him, dropping to all fours, lowering her chest to the floor, forehead touching the ground, hands next to her head. Her bottom lifted high, knees spread, back arched — the position that presented her buttocks perfectly for the cane while keeping her face hidden.
Kwame tapped the cane lightly against her thigh. “Good. But for this one we will use the Bridge as the punishment position. I prefer that one.”
Carla hesitated. Bridge? “What is the bridge?” She hadn’t done that in the Academy. Then she quickly added, “Master?” Wouldn’t want to be caught dropping these during an obedience test.
“On your back, hands and feet on the floor, hips raised. Body arched like a bridge. No, spread your feet… further… a bit more… yes, that’s it. No, your hands go over your head, not beside you. Yes. Your body should be tense like a bow.”
Carla’s heart pounded. She rolled onto her back, placed her hands and feet flat on the ground, kept spreading her legs as ordered. Then pushed her body up with her hands. It was hard, and her body was strained, but she eventually managed. She was used to being naked before these men by now. But as the janitor circled her, she flushed at the thought of him seeing her when he was before her legs.
Her back strained, and she shivered. Not just from the strain but also from the thought of how some of her most sensitive areas were now exposed to this man. She had never imagined presenting herself to a man in such a position. Her defenselessness hit her like a wave. Sweat beaded on her skin as she strained to hold her position, and she hoped it would be over soon.
The janitor nodded. “Good. It can be a difficult position to hold at first. But with practice you will improve.”
He started with light slaps from below, his cane smacking her buttcheeks. Demeaning as the smacks were, they were not the hard blows that Rafiki had dealt her.
“One!” She gasped under the strain of holding the position.
“Two… Three…”
These were loud smacks, but painless, almost symbolic even. She wasn’t here to be punished after all, she reminded herself. These were just tests and drills Rafiki had ordered to make her more submissive. But the position she was forced to hold made even the light touches feel invasive, and her body trembled from the strain.
Then he began to lightly tap from above against her labia. The first touch was so unexpected, so intimate, that Carla gasped and collapsed. Her hips dropped to the floor. She hadn’t imagined he would actually hit her there. The audacity that he would take advantage of her like this shocked her more than the sting, her mind reeling from the sheer exposure.
“Four!” She said in an accusatory tone. How dare he hit here there?
“You broke position,” Kwame said with a faint amused smile tugging at his lips. “We start over.”
Carla exhaled indignantly. But she had no rights here, no way she could push back. She had to do whatever he said. So she pushed herself back up, sweating, shaking in anticipation.
As he walked around her, the janitor explained, “My grandfather used to say that the benefit of this position was not in the pain of the punishment. But it is in learning the lesson that this can be done to them. That this is how much they are at the mercy of their masters. Many don’t realize this until they are ordered into this position. But as they hold it, they feel how they depend on the mercy of their masters. And they become better slaves because of it.”
He resumed, by administering a light slap to her vagina with his cane.
“One…” she forced herself to count anew.
Carla held the bridge, her muscles burning, mind screaming at the indignity as she counted the strokes.
“Seven,” she gasped. “eight…”
When he aimed for the ninth, she was a mess of sweat and tremors.
“Nine,” she said, breathing heavily with shaking arms, struggling to hold the position.
The tenth was on her clitoris — light, barely a tap, but the shock of it made her scream and collapse again, her body folding in on itself.
Carla breathed heavily and felt the sweat running down her forehead.
“Ten,” she forced out, looking at him with barely veiled anger. He didn’t need to do that.
The janitor chuckled. “In my village, sometimes they do the clitoris slap on the ninth count. The slave collapses, and then the whole thing restarts. Good thing we’re not there.”
Carla didn’t answer. She pushed herself to her knees, breathing hard, arranging her hair to fall behind her back.
The janitor presented her the cane, and she leaned forward to kiss it.
“Thank you for the obedience test, Master,” she whispered.
Kwame nodded. “Dismissed. Take a shower before you report to Juma.”
“Yes, Sir… I mean Master,” Carla rose, knees weak, and left the shed, the morning sun blinding as she stepped out.
The crate of beer bottles rattled in the cart as Carla pulled it along the long route to Coconut Grove Farm, the sun beating down on her bare skin like a relentless overseer. Her legs burned from the effort, muscles honed from months of hauling loads, but she kept her pace steady.
She set it down near one of the barns. The men were already gathering with grins, unloaded the crate and grabbed bottles. They laughed as they cracked them open and took a break.
Carla spotted Melissa in the yam field, bent over rows of earth, naked and sweat-glistened, her collar glinting in the light. Melissa straightened as Carla approached, her eyes lighting up with a mix of joy and desperation. She dropped her hoe and ran, bare feet kicking up red dust, throwing her arms around Carla in a fierce hug.
Their naked skin pressed together. Carla hugged back, breathing in Melissa’s scent of earth and sweat and quiet despair. It had been many weeks since they had last seen each other.
“Carla,” Melissa whispered, pulling back, hands on Carla’s arms. “I was afraid you had forgotten me.”
“Never,” Carla said. “They didn’t let me out of the settlement.”
Melissa’s face fell, but she nodded. “So great to see you again!”
They started walking slowly around the farm, keeping their voices low. The farmhands’ laughter echoed from the main building, bottles clinking — they’d be occupied for a while.
Melissa glanced around, then leaned in. “Tell me. What’s new? You look… stronger. But your eyes — something’s wrong.”
Carla sighed and told Melissa the events since they had last seen each other. Melissa gasped when Carla told her how the tracker had shocked her for being too late, and listened with open eyes as she heard about Tara, Rafiki and the tourist route, “And the tourists… white people from the West. Brits, French. They stare, touch, offer to buy me, film me for ‘awareness’ — then do nothing.”
Melissa’s eyes widened. “White tourists? Like us? And they do nothing?”
Carla nodded, voice bitter. “One guy promised to call the embassy. Never heard from him again. Another was a pervert who wanted me to service him. And one woman said she is researching slavery and has ‘contacts’ who want to liberate slaves. Asked about my life, seemed to care. But she’s clueless.”
Melissa leaned forward, eyes fierce. “Liberate slaves? That’s new.”
Carla snorted, kicking at the dirt with her bare toe. “She’s a nutjob, Melissa. She uses slave labour to bring her food to her cottage with a pool. I don’t trust her. ‘Liberating slaves.’ Like that’s ever going to happen.”
Melissa’s expression sharpened. “It’s still more than I ever managed to find. But I don’t even know a single nutjob who wants to free me. In fact, my nutjob, Markus, is the one who’s keeping me here.”
Carla’s voice softened. “Markus?”
Melissa’s laugh was bitter. “Yes, Markus is back.”
Carla’s mouth fell open. “Your… your… I mean, the guy who bought you is here?”
“Yeah! He is staying in some resort in the settlement. Sometimes they bring me to him when he feels like getting his rocks off. They bring me to him in chains! Can you imagine that?” Melissa’s voice cracked slightly, eyes flashing with old rage.
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph…” Carla whispered, fingers instinctively curling around her own collar, the metal suddenly heavier than ever.
“He uses me, finishes, sends me back like I’m laundry. I’m in chains the entire time — he doesn’t even bother releasing me when he… you know.”
“Holy Mother of God,” she breathed, eyes wide.
They passed the cattle carrier parked near one of the barns. Melissa nodded toward it. “That’s the truck they use to haul me to him. Also, to get me to the milk bar when I have my shift. Locked in the back cage like cattle.”
“Despicable how they treat us,” Carla commented. “I was brought here from the Kivana Islands in one of these.”
“It drives me wild that in this country he can do this to me. And then just have the farm hold me here, working for him. And there is nothing I can do! Nothing! As long as his collar is locked on me…”
Melissa’s voice cracked slightly, eyes flashing with old rage. She tugged at her collar in helpless frustration.
“It has been locked on my neck ever since this guy ‘bought’ me. I hate this thing. It drives me crazy that I can’t get it off. It is like a constant reminder that he ‘has’ me.”
“Christ almighty…” she whispered, voice trembling.
“And I know that he has the key with him, Carla. He could take this collar off me anytime and free me. But it is more convenient for him this way and so this is my life.”
Melissa sighed, and they both looked into the distance over endless vegetable patches.
“And what is in here?” Carla asked as they passed a shed.
Melissa glanced at it. “That barn is packed full with hay. They store it there to keep it dry.”
“And that one?” Carla asked, nodding toward the largest building. “I pass by it every time I come here. I guess that is the main building?”
Melissa glanced at it. “Yes. It is off limits for us slaves. I can’t even go in there. It has one of those chip scanners at the entrance. It picks up our chips the second we try to cross the line.”
“Our chips?” Carla asked.
Melissa’s voice dropped. “Everyone here on this farm has been chipped, Carla. We’re easy to track — like animals with tags.”
Melissa cleared her throat. “Anyway, that is why I want you to tell me more about this researcher woman. If there’s anyone willing to help us… I can’t stand it that I’m stuck here waiting for Markus to decide when he wants me next.”
Carla hesitated. “The ‘researcher’ in her cushy pool cottage who talks big about liberating slaves but hasn’t done a thing? Her name is Felicity. She’s new, doesn’t know any details if there even are any to know.”
Melissa gripped Carla’s arm. “Can you find out more? If there’s even a chance…”
Carla shook her head. “There is no point, Melissa! Even if she wanted to help me, even if she wasn’t so naive, I can’t be freed. Don’t forget that they have put a tracker in me. If I don’t check in at the recharging station at the end of the day, it will shock the hell out of me. It really will. It has happened once. I missed the recharging station by minutes. The shocks dropped me to my knees — I couldn’t stand, I couldn’t do anything. It was just wave after wave of pain. I lay there shaking until someone turned it off.”
“Oh no,” Melissa said, gently stroking Carla’s abdominal area, fingers tracing the invisible line where the tracker sat.
Carla flinched slightly, then leaned into the touch.
“It is so evil what they have done to you. Like an invisible leash that ties you to this place.”
“Yeah,” Carla sighed. “I’m stuck here. But if you want, I can tell her about you, and that you want to escape. You don’t have a tracker. But I doubt Felicity will be able to pull this off. Cookies and sympathy, yes, but I doubt you’ll get much more from her.”
Melissa’s eyes flashed. “Cookies and sympathy are more than I get here, Carla. At least someone might be thinking about me as a person who deserves freedom instead of Markus’s fuck-toy and milk cow.” Her voice cracked on the last words, but she forced it steady. “Tell her. Please. It can’t get worse than this. At the moment I’m just Markus’s sex and farm slave at his beck and call with no way out whatsoever!”
Carla swallowed. The tracker gave a faint, almost mocking hum low in her belly — a reminder she wasn’t going anywhere. “Okay,” she said finally, voice quiet. “Next time I see her, I’ll tell her you’re here. And that you want out. No promises, but… I’ll tell her.”
“Thanks, Carla.”
“You know it won’t work, Melissa, right? I want to see you get out of here, but getting these,” Carla tugged at her collar, “off isn’t easy. Nobody will help with that. Even if we got the collars off, we’d need papers to leave the country. And the second we ask for papers, they’ll find us.”
“I will take any chance that gets me out of here, Carla. Any. Even if it fails. At least for that time, I won’t be Markus’s to order to his bed in chains. It drives me mad that whenever he wants me, I’m delivered to him in chains like clockwork. Even if I get caught after a week, at least I know that I tried. Maybe Markus even asks for me and I won’t be here for a change. That alone would be worth it. Think about it, Carla, what do we have to lose?”
Carla made a desperate laugh, “We literally have nothing we could lose. Alright. Next time I see Felicity, I’ll tell her you want to be freed. We’ll see what comes out from that.”
After a moment, Carla added, “And if… when you make it out, I hope you don’t forget about me.”
“Of course not! I will never forget you!”
Melissa laughed. “Look at us. Planning our escape like we are about to leave this place.”
Carla laughed.
“But seriously,” Melissa added after a pause. “If we make a desperate attempt, I’m not going without you, Carla. I will not leave you behind in this place. Even if it means I have to drag you out myself.”
Carla smiled. “I wouldn’t make it far, Melissa. At the end of the day, I’d be a ball of pain, begging to be brought back to my ‘owners.’ I only have two years anyway. Then my sentence expires.”
Melissa looked at her for a long moment, then shook her head slowly.
“Two years? You really think they’ll just let you go after two years?”
Carla blinked. “They promised. Two-year sentence. That’s the law.”
Melissa’s voice became very quiet, almost gentle.
“I thought I would be freed as well. That my enslavement was only temporary. That, yes, it was demeaning that I had to be nude, but if I just waited it out, I would be freed. But it didn’t turn out that way. I was sold to Markus. And it was the same there again. Markus only wanted this to be temporary and then free me. Well, you can see how that went.”
They reached another barn, a sprawling mud-brick structure with a slanted roof. Melissa opened the creaking door and they stepped inside.
The interior was a mix of animal pens and a large caged section along one wall.
The pens were crude wooden enclosures with slatted floors and rusty wire mesh, straw scattered across the dirt. Large open windows high on the walls let in fresh breezes, mixing the warm, earthy smell of hay and manure with clean outside air.
Melissa pointed to the caged section. “And this is where I spend my nights. Locked behind these bars. In the same barn as the animals.”
The caged section stood out sharply — a cold grid of steel bars with a single barred door.
Carla looked at a small, worn metal plate with a display attached near the cage door. “What is this?” she asked. As she stepped closer, it beeped and a red light flashed up.
Carla jumped back, startled.
Melissa gave a bitter laugh. “That bloody thing. That’s the chip scanner. So they know if one of us is missing at night. Livestock management. I hate it. Weird it reacted to you though… you haven’t been chipped, have you?”
“No,” Carla said indignantly, backing away from the device.
“Strange,” Melissa murmured. “It says ‘Unknown ID.’ Hm. Could it be your tracker?”
“No.” Carla shook her head, backing away from the device, hand instinctively brushing her abdomen.
“Hm.” Melissa stepped closer to the device. The light switched to green, displaying “Melissa Maurer.” Her voice dropped, thick with disgust. “See? It picked up my chip. Like scanning a barcode at the supermarket. Like I’m inventory.”
“Wow,” Carla said. “They lock us in a cage as night as well. But at least there are no animals at Tribal Dispatch.”
“Yeah. Markus used to keep me in his house. But one day he decided to leave, and I was taken to this farm. This has been my home ever since, and I have been forced to work for his and the farm’s profit. And now he is back to use me for his sexual gratification. He is not going to free me. I don’t think so. Ever.”
Melissa sighed.
Carla’s gaze wandered across the barn. She noticed a sturdy wooden ledge fixed high along one wall. A row of iron hooks was evenly spaced along its length. From the hooks dangled an assortment of restraints: steel handcuffs, leg irons, and a few long chains. The metal glinted coldly in the light filtering through the high windows.
Melissa followed her look and gave a small, resigned nod. “Those are what they use on us. When they bring us to the milk bar. They cuff our hands behind our backs and lock us to the coffle chain — one long line of us, chained together. Then we are led to the cattle transporter.”
She pointed to a pair of heavy cuffs connected to leg irons by a central chain, hanging from one of the hooks. “And this is what they put me in when they take me to Markus. Hands cuffed in front, ankles linked, helpless to do anything. Just the way Markus likes me.”
Carla stared at the restraints, the metal suddenly feeling colder against her own neck.
“Why does he have you delivered to him in chains?”
“He said that he doesn’t want any drama. And that having me in chains would calm me down.”
Melissa paused. “I hate it. He comes out of his hut when the carrier arrives and watches me struggle to climb out. When he’s done, he watches me climb back in. He never lets me out of the chains the entire time.”
“That is heartbreaking, Melissa. And so wrong what he is doing to you.” She sighed. “But I don’t think it makes sense for me to risk it with Felicity. I have been sentenced to slavery only for two years. They promised me that.”
“My enslavement was also meant to be for a limited amount of time!” Melissa exclaimed. “But slavery has a way of sticking. Once your freedom is gone here, you don’t get back. I don’t believe it. Think about it, Carla: Who will make them free you? The same men who own you now? The ones who profit from every day you work?”
“I… I don’t know,” Carla said. “I guess there is some kind of legal process…”
“Legal process? You have been here for months now. Have you seen any paperwork, any lawyer, anyone checking in on you?”
“No… but…” Carla couldn’t think of anything. “I asked for a lawyer shortly after I was purchased. Then, they sent me to The Slave Academy where I was locked into a dark box for a day. I never asked for a lawyer again after that.”
“Yes, exactly,” Melissa replied. “This is not the West. Things don’t work here as we might think. I was told that slaves are legally incompetent. That is why there is nothing I can do to get myself freed. Nothing!”
A farmhand’s voice suddenly barked from the doorway, sharp and annoyed. “Melissa! What are you doing in here?”
Both women froze. They hadn’t heard him approach — the thick mud walls and the distant lowing of animals had muffled his footsteps. Carla’s heart lurched. Melissa’s face went pale.
),