CHAPTER I

 

Jenny Marsten stared, stunned, at the computer screen.  She had just lost her freedom, and not for merely one or two hundred days.  She was, at that moment, beginning 1250 days– more than three and one half years– of slavery.

Just how it was that a girl not quite out of high school should find herself facing servitude is a story in itself, one that Jenny herself would be hard pressed to tell.  In brief, the first third of the twenty-first century witnessed a short, but savage, domination of America by far right-wing politicians.  For twelve years, archconservatives directed government on the federal, state, and local levels.  The constitution, especially the Bill of Rights, was amended beyond recognition.  In particular, the Fifth Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment, was repealed.  It was an article of faith among conservatives that the coddling of criminals lay at the root of America's ills.  Criminals had to learn, the hard way, that they had erred, and wardens in federal and state prisons were given broad powers to design the curricula.  Many soon discovered that it was convenient, and profitable, to sell female prisoners (at least the young and attractive ones) into slavery, a development that had not been anticipated when the Fifth Amendment was eliminated.

Slavery itself, under the Thirteenth Amendment, was still illegal.  However, in the court challenges to female slavery, defenders of the new system argued that a prisoner sold into slavery was not a slave but a prisoner.  Since the Thirteenth Amendment permitted servitude as punishment and since slavery was not, by definition or lack thereof, cruel or unusual, judges ruled for the slaveholders.  Slavery, subject to some restrictions, rapidly reestablished itself.  The principle restriction was that only licensed slaveholders could own slaves.  The licenses were expensive and their cost not only limited the number of slaveholders but also dictated how the slaves were employed.

After the country's predictable move back to the left, the constitution was nearly entirely restored.  However, the Fifth Amendment in its original form, despite repeated attempts, was never able to muster the support of thirty-eight state legislatures.  The slaveholders, understanding that passage of the amendment could doom their businesses, had carefully cultivated a small but influential number of politicians.  Undaunted by their failure to reestablish the amendment, the opponents of slavery renewed their court challenges.  Unfortunately, the lasting legacy of the conservative revolution was a judiciary dedicated to preserving as much of that revolution as possible.  For years after the conservatives yielded political control, judges ruled in favor of slaveholders.

Jenny, though, was not a prisoner who had been sold to a slaveholder.  She had gambled her freedom.  Not long after slavery became established, it was noted by the slaveholders that only prisoners could become slaves.  To extend equal rights to women who were not fortunate enough to find themselves in prison, the slaveholders had managed, with some legalistic legerdemain, to convince some judges that a woman could gamble with her freedom.  The logic employed here was worse than that used to justify slavery for prisoners.  Since only a criminal could be enslaved, laws were enacted which made it illegal for a woman to lose a game of chance played against a slaveholder.  Thus, by losing such a game, the woman violated the law and thereby became liable to imprisonment.  Slaveholders were permitted, under such circumstances, to immediately enslave the woman rather than go through the legal hassles of charging, convicting, imprisoning, and then purchasing the woman.

The slaveholders wanted the game whereby a woman gambled with her freedom to be simple and quick.  The first few years' slaveholders conducted such games; they tried using the games of chance common in casinos.  Unfortunately, there were few takers.  Then one day a woman offered to gamble her freedom by playing computer solitaire.  The woman was young and pretty and the slaveholder agreed.  The deal was simple.  The woman would play five games of solitaire.  If she was ahead at the end of five games, the slaveholder would pay her a multiple of the amount she was ahead (in this first instance it was reputed to be twenty).  If she was behind at the end of the five games, she would lose her freedom for a number of days equal to a multiple of the amount she was behind.  She won, but the slaveholder immediately saw the advantage of such an arrangement.  First, each potential slave would command her own multiples.  The younger and more attractive players would be given the opportunity to win large amounts while facing the prospect of relatively short terms of enslavement.  Those women whom the slavers did not want would be offered very unattractive multiples and therefore would not gamble.  Second, using solitaire opened the possibility of standardizing the enslavement process.  This greatly appealed to the slaveholders and before long computer solitaire became the game of enslavement nationwide.

At first, the slavers chose a version of solitaire that was difficult to win.  Most women who played lost, and therefore few played.  Realizing their error, the slavers changed to a game that approximately nine out of every ten women won.  Since a female slave was worth many thousands of dollars a year, the slavers easily recouped their losses.  In addition, the number of women willing to gamble their freedom increased appreciably.  There weren't lines of women outside every slaver's business waiting to gamble, but from a bare trickle before the introduction of the easy form of solitaire the flow of potential slaves had increased to the point where the slavers had as many applicants as they wanted.  They could therefore be very selective.

Thus Jenny Marsten was allowed to gamble her freedom.  Her multiples were forty-five for winning and ten for losing.  The screen in front of her showed that she was behind $125 at the end of the fifth game.  "Twelve hundred and fifty days," she said to herself, not believing it.

Among high school girls like Jenny, slavery and gambling one's freedom had a strange fascination.  Nearly every girl Jenny's age wanted to know what multiples she would command, and many girls who never gambled indulged their vanity by visiting a slaveholder.  Among girls with high multiples, there were some who gambled because the risk of losing, though small, was exciting.  Before she gambled, a girl signed away her freedom so that during the half hour she was playing solitaire she was technically a slave.  The prospect of stepping into the very jaws of a monster, then escaping unscathed, made gambling attractive to some.  The thrill of escape appealed to Jenny, but in her case there was some peer pressure.  Two girls in her high school clique had recently gambled and won.

Though the gamble itself was simple, a girl could not risk her freedom on a lark.  There were several legal requirements she had to meet before she was allowed to gamble.  The legal barriers to gambling had been erected at the instigation of feminist groups, alarmed that girls Jenny's age were becoming slaves.  Before she could gamble, a girl had to play one hundred hours of the type of solitaire that she would play at the slavers.  This, it was hoped, would show her that she could lose.  It would also improve her skill at the game in the event she decided to gamble anyway.  Further, and more importantly, she had to state in writing that she understood what a slave's life entailed.  This she did by copying several times, word for word, a list of conditions under which a slave lived.

These legal prerequisites to gambling were not satisfactory from the point of view of the women's movement.  The list of conditions a prospective gambler had to copy, while accurate, didn't begin to explain how unpleasant a slave's life could be.  That was because the slaveholders, realizing that legal barriers to gambling could make it virtually impossible for a free woman to become a slave, had enlisted the aid of their political allies when the laws in question were drafted.  The slaveholders wanted the list of conditions to sound as innocuous as possible.  To achieve this, they had compromised on the amount of time a prospective gambler had to practice playing solitaire.  The anti-slavery movement thought that one hundred hours would seem like an eternity to a young woman.  In practice, though, prospective gamblers were not dissuaded.  It was not difficult to get girls Jenny's age to play a computer game for hours on end.

As Jenny stared at the awful $125 figure at the bottom of the computer screen, she thought back to the one hundred hours she had spent learning solitaire.  She had lost only a handful of the thousands of games she had played.  She must have made some terrible mistake during the five games she had just finished, but she hadn't noticed that she had played those games any differently than all the others.  Then her thoughts turned to the friends who had, in high spirits, accompanied her to the slaveholder's.  They had a standard joke about what to do if you lost:  Jenny could hear herself and her friends saying, in a mocking tone, "Open wiiiiide," and then bursting into laughter.

At the moment it didn't sound very funny.  She knew that her friends had watched on the small monitor in the waiting room as she played the five games that ended her freedom, and she knew that by now they were making their way back to their favorite hangout to report to all who would listen that Jenny was now a slave.  Several of Jenny's male acquaintances would be glad to hear it.

The slavers, after years of experience, had learned how to handle new slaves like Jenny.  In the past, new slaves were gang raped, then severely whipped on their first day.  Those days were long gone.  The slavers learned that a new slave, treated firmly but not viciously, adapted to her new position and ultimately became a much more attractive property than the slave who was routinely abused.  Jenny now found herself the latest subject of the slaveholders' enlightened methods.

She had stared silently at the computer screen for three minutes, too stunned at first to show any reaction.  Then she burst into tears.  Women who lost their freedom were left to themselves for several minutes to gauge their initial response.  If the new slave did not break down in tears, she could be taken to her new quarters straightaway.  If the loss was too much to handle, though, the new slave was left alone until she was able to compose herself.  Jenny needed half and hour to stop crying.  When she finally did, a woman in her thirties, a slave herself, came into the room to get Jenny.

"C'mon, honey," the older slave said, taking hold of Jenny's upper arm, "let's get you something to drink.  If you're hungry, you can have something to eat too."

Jenny looked up at the woman who had addressed her.  She was startled to see a woman, completely naked save for a wide, brown leather collar, staring down at her.

"C'mon, sweetie," the older slave said again, "let's get you a bit to drink and a place to lie down."

Jenny, mechanically, got up and followed the older woman out of the gaming room, which contained only a table, a chair, and a computer.  They walked through a metal door, which closed heavily behind them, and proceeded down a long, windowless, but well-lighted hallway.  At the end of the hallway was another metal door, which opened for them when the older slave pushed a buzzer.  Jenny could not tell who opened the door, for she saw no one as the two slaves began walking down another, wider hallway.  This hallway, much shorter than the first, had two doors on its right side, though these were wood rather than metal.  The older slave stopped at the first door and opened it.  Jenny noticed there was no lock or latch on the door.  The room was nearly bare.  There was no furniture at all.  Some blankets and a pillow were stacked against the right wall.  The left wall had an opening that led to a small bathroom.

"Sorry about the lack of furniture, but that's the way it is for a slave," said the older woman.  "You like Coke?  Milk?  Want something to eat?"

Jenny was cried out; else she might have burst into tears again.  She said nothing.

"Okay, I'll get you a Coke.  If you spread out those blankets, you can make yourself a place to lie down."

The older slave disappeared, without closing the door, leaving Jenny alone.  Jenny was still wearing the smock that gamblers had to change into.  It wasn't immodest, but it was the only clothing she had.  Gamblers left their own clothes behind when they entered the gaming room.  If the gambler won, she was given back her clothes and some money.  If not, the smock was her only clothing.  Jenny unfolded three of the blankets, laying them one on top of another, and sat down, leaning her back against the wall.  In a moment, the older slave came back with a Coke in a paper cup.  She handed it to Jenny, then sat down herself opposite the new slave.  She let Jenny drink a little of the Coke before speaking.

"I guess you know what a slave's life is like, so I won't go into any of that unless you want me to.  I'm just here to let you know what happens today and tomorrow.  You can stop me any time you want and ask me anything."  The older slave paused.  "Understand?" she said as gently as she could.  Jenny nodded.

"OK, first it's possible to get along here tolerably well, once you've completed your training.  At first it's a bit rough, but I've never met a girl who couldn't get used to it.  By the way, do you know what time it is?"

Jenny looked up quizzically.  "It's about 3," she said.

"A.M. or P.M.?"

"P.M., of course," said Jenny.  "Who would be out at 3 A.M.?"

"Who can say?" said the older slave, "but in here you can lose track of time.  I needed to know so I can give you an idea of your schedule.  In a few hours you'll have to change into your regular outfit.  Slaves go naked except for a leather collar and leather wrist and ankle bracelets.  For new slaves, the collar and the bracelets are yellow."  Jenny already knew from her information sessions what standard attire was for a slave.  She noticed that the older slave wore a plain brown collar and bracelets, and that there were metal rings, about two inches in diameter, attached to the collar and the bracelets.  Jenny also knew that a slave could be punished in any manner the slaveholder chose, and guessed that the rings had something to do with that.  She couldn't resist asking.

"What are the rings for?"

"The collar ring is for a leash, mostly," said the older slave matter-of-factly.  "All the rings are used as restraints at one time or another."

"Do you get beaten often?" asked Jenny, in a worried tone.

"A slave is rarely beaten.  She may be punished, but that usually only happens when she disobeys.  You'll find out all about that from your master, anyway.  I can't say how your master will treat you."