Chapter 1

 

I couldn't believe my good fortune. It had come completely out of the blue. There had been this telephone call from a solicitor in Melbourne indicating that he had some good news for me and was sending me an electronic airline ticket and to contact him the moment I arrived in the southern city.

My name is James Cockburn, I am twenty-three years old and a cadet executive with the Coles grocery chain and my current appointment is as an assistant manager with one of their stores at the huge Robina Shopping Centre. As a corollary to that appointment I am also studying commerce part-time at Griffith University. According to the company, the sky is the limit so far as my advancement is concerned. It will be what I make it and no more.

The solicitor wouldn't elaborate on the bland statement that he had very good news for me and I shouldn't delay in coming down to see him. The store manager joked to me that I must have come into a fortune and then said he'd see me in a few days.

Fortune! To me at least, that was the understatement of the year.

"Four hundred and fifty million dollars," I started, staring at him blankly. "Who? How much was that again? Why me?"

Emanuel Craddock grinned at me across his huge desk. "Miss Elizabeth Cockburn inherited a sizable fortune from her father and spent her life in growing it, Mr Cockburn. She never married but kept tabs on every one of her Cockburn relations. She didn't have a very high opinion of any of them, except you."

"But I've never even heard of her, Mr Craddock. How am I related to her?"

"She is descended from your great-grandfather but since your branch of the family moved to Queensland two generations ago, I suppose it is not surprising that there was little or no communication with her branch."

"But if she was interested in me why didn't she make some contact. I mean, as I say, I have never even heard of her?"

"No, well she knew that your father had been a good man although not especially gifted in anything but then she watched you work your way through school and gain this cadetship together with a place at university; she also monitored your private life and was pleased to note that unlike most of your generation, you seem to have excellent morals and ethics.

"For example, she knew of your habit of helping lesser students academically, and on the sporting field was always the one to stop and help a faltering competitor. She also received reports of the way you conducted yourself with your two girlfriends and noted particularly that while you clearly kissed and cuddled, you never appeared to go the whole way."

I think I was blushing furiously at all of this but I nodded and said that my parents, while very loving and supportive had brought me up in the old ways of chivalry and that I just sort-of went along with it.

He smiled and nodded but then went on: "Well, she watched or rather read the reports sent to her and was impressed. I have been her friend for a very long time and often marvelled that she had remained single although she certainly liked men and went out with them. It is my belief that she just preferred a solitary life so far as her own home is concerned.

"As regards that, she lived in a beautiful old white mansion in St. George's Road, Toorak, which is probably Melbourne's premier address. It is yours now and I would like to take you out there to show you over it. She had exquisite taste and although she didn't entertain all that often, when she did, it was always perfection personified."

"Well I would love to see it, Mr Craddock. I have always loved these old colonial houses and as pursuing a career as a supermarket executive no longer seems all that appealing, yes, I would love to go out and see this house.

 

His office was in the CBD and it was only a twenty minute drive out to St George's Road. As we crossed the Yarra River and then turned left into this so beautiful thoroughfare, I looked with interest at the imposing façades of those I could see as we drove up the hill. He pointed out some of the more notable residences and of their owners, who were of course from Melbourne's and Victoria's elite.

He turned into a very imposing driveway with enormous black wrought iron gates picked out with gold and as he spoke into the intercom, they began to open, ponderously swinging inwards to reveal a magnificent garden with freshly-raked orange gravel winding in through enormous old trees and magnificent shrubberies interspersed with immaculate, velvet-green lawns and garden beds.

And of course I noted a couple of naked slaves working around the garden. Slaves had been around for more than a generation by this time but as they could only be made by the courts in lieu of prisons, they were somewhat of a rarity and were very expensive to buy.

We pulled up under the magnificent white porte-cochere but as we had approached the house, I think my jaw must have dropped a mile. It was huge! There were two storeys above the ground floor as well as a basement level below it, making four in all. And in the front corner of the imposing building there was a tower with another couple of levels above the second floor.

As we pulled up, the magnificent double glass doors opened and a real-life butler emerged to open my door.

"Welcome to Bromley, Mr Cockburn."

I looked up at this tall, dignified epitome of an old-world servant with some awe. Very few people in Australia, these days, could afford servants. "Thank you, er, Mr...?"

"Jarvis, sir. William Jarvis, but to you, just plain Jarvis..."

He led us into the house and as I stared up in that magnificent entry hall that was as high as the three aboveground storeys in the building, I felt myself falling in love with it. But then I came back to ground with a thud, for he was now leading me over to a row of naked slaves headed up by his wife Mary, who was apparently the housekeeper.

There were five of them and he introduced them to me, apparently thinking I was their new master. To that point, I had had no intentions of staying in Melbourne and taking over this house. I loved living in Queensland with its so balmy climate and wonderful lifestyle but every second I remained in that house, my mind was going over the possibilities of actually taking it over and making a new life down there in Victoria.

Among the five naked slaves, four were female and here I should comment that every single one of them was highly attractive, possessed of a near-perfect body and was smiling in pleasure at being introduced to what she assumed was her new owner.

Cora was my great-aunt's cook and was apparently a qualified chef who had run afoul of the law. In appearance she was smallish with an impish expression on her face and was very nicely athletic. Actually, all of them were either athletic or distinctly muscular. I suppose it stands to reason if you are going to have naked bodies around you, it goes without saying that you would want them to be pleasing in appearance. Fatties or skinnies would not be desirable.

Next in the line was Amelia who was the downstairs housemaid-slave and next to her was Jenny, who was Amelia's upstairs equivalent. And then there was Wanda, who had been my aunt's personal slave.

On the end of the line was Robert a tall and very muscular twenty-seven year old former plumber who served as the maintenance-slave for the estate.

Having inspected them all, I glanced at the solicitor with my eyebrows raised. He smiled a little and shrugged his shoulders. "Well, Mr Craddock, you may have been going to take the house over and if that was the case, it would be expected that you check over the staff..."

I widened my grin. "Yes, well with every moment that I stay in this beautiful old house, the more I am inclined to follow that course. I can't imagine a better place to live than here and with this wonderful team of servants and slaves to look after me."

He nodded and then informed the butler that he would take me all over the house so he and his wife could send the slaves back to their various duties.

The ground floor contained the various public rooms, that is the formal drawing and dining rooms, the private sitting and dining rooms, a fully-equipped billiard room and next to that a huge library lined with thousands of books, all of which seemed to be leather bound first editions as well as a comfortable sitting area where the host could entertain one group of friends while his wife looked after another in the drawing room. There was a beautifully-appointed study annexed to the library and I also glimpsed a huge glass-encased gymnasium off to one side of the building. And yes, of course there were all the associated kitchens, pantries and larders, laundries and associated service rooms out at the back of the house.

Upstairs, on the first floor was the master bedroom and its associated bath, dressing and sitting rooms. This suite occupied the front of the building which was situated in a U-shape, with two wings projecting backwards from its front.

The right-hand wing (from the front of the building) comprised four family bedrooms each of which contained its own en-suite bathroom and dressing room while guest suites comprised the other wing.

The third floor contained the former servants rooms (William and Mary Jarvis occupied the butler's flat in the kitchen complex, as did Cora, the smaller apartment for the former paid cook).

My great aunt had had an elevator installed in the building when she had purchased it many years previously for there were actually four levels when you counted the basement, and that did not include the two upper levels in the tower.

As Emanuel Craddock took me through the third floor, I realised it was now empty as the slaves were all accommodated in the basement level. "My aunt had no use for these floors, Mr Craddock?" I asked.

"No, sir," he smiled. "Once criminal slavery became established, great houses such as this gradually replaced their paid staff with slaves, who of course, are not entitled to bedrooms or even proper beds, as you would no doubt be aware?"

I shook my head. "You are wrong Mr Craddock. I know almost nothing about slavery but I will tell you this, I have really and truly fallen in love with this house and I am definitely going to move down here and take up residence and so, as we are no doubt going to see quite a lot of each other, I would be pleased if you would call me James from now on."

He nodded and smiled again. "I am really pleased to hear that, James, for I must confess that I have taken a great liking to you, much as I did for your great-aunt and so I ask you to call me Emanuel."

"Right, well perhaps I might move in right now, if that was acceptable. It seems silly to have all these people, servants and slaves maintaining it in perfect condition while I go and stay in a motel or some such?"

"Of course, and in fact, I suggest Jarvis has probably already collected your bag from my car and installed it in the master bedroom."

I laughed. "Everyone seems to have anticipated me, even before I knew myself but I don't mind in the least and while I know absolutely nothing about the management of slaves, or even servants for that matter as I certainly have never moved in the circles where they exist to this point, I suspect Jarvis is going to steer me along the right course?"

"He is a real gem, James. And you will find his wife is as good a housekeeper as any such as she who may be responsible for the upkeep of the likes of Blenheim Palace in England, so I can only recommend that you be guided by the pair of them until you find your feet, anyway.

"There is one matter you may need to address immediately, however."

"And that is?"

"The matter of Wanda. She was your aunt's personal lady's maid but you may wish to have a male valet-slave instead?"

I looked at him seriously for a few moments but then responded. "Actually, Emanuel, I have taken quite a shine to that young lady. If I was to retain her as my own personal slave would it reflect badly on this house?"

He smiled briefly but then shook his head. "Now I think I am beginning to understand why your aunt took such a shine to you, James. Anyone else would have said, 'reflect on me', not, 'on this house'; but no, I don't have any slaves of my own but many of my clients do and, particularly if they are single, they tend to favour a female body-slave (which is the term used for such a personal servant) rather than a male.

"And that leads me to another element in the institution of modern criminal slavery."

I looked at him enquiringly. "And that is?"

"When slavery was first re-established right round the world as a replacement for the thousands of prisons which had now been shown to be useless either as a deterrent or as a punishment for crimes, it had been decided that if it was to be effective, it would need to be rather draconian and so over the first few years, a whole series of ground rules were established and these were eventually codified into law in most countries.

"You will have noted that each one of the slaves here is naked and more than that, all facial and body hair below the eyes has been permanently removed. That is the first absolute requirement in a slave and was enacted partly as a shame and humiliation but also to help identify a slave from a free person.

"Secondly, they are to be worked hard for long hours, vastly longer than the working hours of a free person. The minimum daily hours are fifteen, although some owners work them even longer. And that workload is to be continuous. They are fed before commencing work at six a.m. and are then required to work right through without a break until nine p.m. You will find that Jarvis and his wife will see to that without any problems.

"Thirdly, slaves do not eat ordinary food. They are an expensive item to buy but once purchased, cost almost nothing to maintain. Some enterprising genius in America invented a product called Slave Chow which is a pelletised food that looks rather like those old chook pellets with which backyard hens were fed and I think are still used in the huge poultry farms of today. It is produced from cheap or leftover cuts of meat, reject or leftover vegetables and reject grain in exactly the right proportions, fed into gigantic pressure cookers which also masticate the resultant cooked food into a paste which is then extruded in nozzles that dry it and cut it off in short lengths.

"The resultant pellets are extremely cheap but provide a perfect diet without any nasties whatsoever and which, along with the hard exercise required of a slave every day, all contribute to the perfection of the bodies of the slaves here as you have already noted.

"And that leads me to the fourth principle of modern slavery. Their welcome. He looked at me with a wry smile on his face and then went on, "Actually, it is anything but a welcome. This term was used however in the poorhouses and prisons of Victorian England as a means of underlining to every new inmate what awaited them if they erred in the future, even though they had done nothing wrong whatsoever to deserve it to that point.

"In most cases, it comprised a dose of the whip, cane or strap to their naked bodies in the presence of the governor or superintendent of the institution and has been enacted into the law on slavery in most parts of the world, certainly here.

"In the case of slaves, they are not only treated to a dose, usually a dozen strokes of the cane to their naked buttocks, upon admission to slavery, but also, in any change of ownership..."

He looked at me seriously for a few moments while I digested this pearl of information, but then went on: "I think you know, James, what I'm trying to tell you...?"

I nodded. "As I have assumed ownership of this wonderful old house, that includes the slaves, and I therefore need to witness their welcome to my ownership. That's what you're saying, isn't it?"

He nodded. "Precisely. I take it you don't object?"

"Of course not. If that's the law and the custom, while I don't believe myself to be sadistic in any way, shape or form, if that is what has to be done, let's do it."

He looked at me seriously but I could see he was also impressed that I was not going to shirk such a distasteful requirement of this new and, I have to say it, intriguing aspect of my new life. "Right now?"

"Right now!"

"Very well, let us go and find Jarvis. Actually, I suspect we might be surprised." He didn't enlarge on what he meant but I guessed he thought the butler would have already anticipated this legal requirement and therefore arranged it.

Our tour of the building was now largely complete and so we took the lift from the third floor down to the ground. It debouched into a tiny hall off the main entry lobby and there we found Jarvis waiting for us.

Emanuel took the lead. "Your new master wishes to observe the slaves' welcome to his ownership, Jarvis ... I suspect you may have anticipated him?"

The butler nodded to him and gave me a tiny court bow. Do you know of these little courtesies? I believe they are still used when bowing to royalty and involve the person standing at attention and then moving the head slightly forward and back again. The body is kept perfectly erect.

"They are ready and waiting, sir, in the punishment suite downstairs and I have also summoned the outdoor slaves as well. If you will follow me, gentlemen?"

We fell in behind him, returning to the lift to descend the one floor to what was now the slave quarters for the whole house.

Before embarking on a description of that welcome, I should perhaps outline those quarters. First of all, the sleeping quarters: they are not provided with bedrooms, or indeed, even beds. Slaves have it tough. I've already said they're kept naked, totally so, for the whole period of this slavery. No exceptions. Even in the depths of a Victorian winter, the only concession given to them is that the bodies of slaves who work outdoors are sprayed with an aerosol product called Thermacoat ® which insulates them from the worst cold.

And so for their sleeping quarters, all that is required is a concrete floor onto which has been painted lines creating a 'compartment' one metre by two. The paint contains a special magnetic element which triggers the silicon chip routinely glued to the right testicle of every male slave (and the clitoris of a female). If they allow any part of their body to move over that painted line, the chip will deliver a horrible electric shock to their gonad or clit. They are thus locked in for the nine hours permitted for them to sleep.

Adjacent to their sleeping quarters is the punishment suite.

As I understand it, my aunt rarely if ever descended to this level of the house, hating the idea of punishing her slaves but well aware that the strictest discipline was a minimum requirement of every slave-owner. As a law-abiding citizen, she apparently went along with it but very rarely if ever, attended a session. Jarvis and his wife are not sadistic people, themselves, but it seems that everyone to do with the institution of modern criminal slavery, is very aware of the dangers of relaxing even to a small degree the rigid discipline necessary to prevent uprisings or, God forbid, rebellion, and have to be prepared to maintain that discipline themselves.

In the suite, there is a frame formed from floor-to-ceiling sturdy timber members in which to secure a slave either upright or upside down for the infliction of the whip.

As Emanuel and I watched Jarvis preparing the slaves for their new welcome to me as their new owner, he explained that the whip could be applied all over the human body from top to bottom and back to front and the implement used varied from a cat-o'-nine-tails to what is called a signal whip, which is of medium length with a sturdy handle and an oily rather than loose tail and apparently delivers a humdinger of a punishment to their bodies.

He also explained that it was rarely, if ever, used in this household. "Your aunt insisted on the minimum punishments permissible, James, and that means the cane. Over there, you can see the caning bench..."

I turned to where he was pointing and noted the rather beautifully-crafted wooden implement made of five centimetre-thick hardwood and polished to a high lustre. It is long at three metres but only thirty centimetres wide. This top surface is supported on three wooden slabs made from the same timber thirty centimetres wide and fifty high, thus placing the buttocks at a perfect height to deliver and receive an accurate and salutary dose of the cane to their pristine curves.

At the foot of this bench, at the bottom corners, two Velcro manacles secure the ankles while at the top end a stainless steel slide has been inlaid into the timber. This contains a bracket, also fashioned of the so beautiful metal to which is attached a bar on the ends of which are two more of those manacles.

It will be obvious that once the ankles are secured the bracket may be slid up or down to match the victim's upstretched wrists and once secured, pulled up tight and locked in order to keep the slave's body perfectly stretched out for the punishment.

Jarvis had scheduled the females to be welcome first and so he had lined them up with Cora to the left followed by Amelia, Jenny and Wanda and then the two outdoor gardener-slaves to their left. Robert, the so muscular handyman-slave was apparently the whip-master and was standing to the right of and a little apart from Cora.

He nodded to Cora who although not now sporting her usually cheery smile didn't hesitate and moved straight over to the bench, laying her smallish but very delectable body face-down on the bench allowing William and Mary Jarvis to secure her ankles and wrists.

Once tight, Jarvis nodded to Robert who was clearly not at all looking forward to his duty for I now gathered that each of these slaves were rather like a family and looked out for one another. But he didn't hesitate, at the nod from the butler, he moved up next to and opposite Emanuel and I, raised the cane at which I gasped at the incredible muscles of his body as they contracted and flexed at the movement. I have to admit at shock at my pleasure at this display of his so athletic muscles. To that point I had never ever had a homosexual thought in my mind. I had lots of male friends but had never even wondered about even the most handsome and/or athletic among them but here I was almost licking my lips as I looked at Robert's near-perfect physique.

I shook my head at which Emanuel moved closer and whispered to me not to be concerned and he would explain later. I was startled that he had noticed but then nodded. There was a hell of a lot about this slavery business that I didn't know and I thought both he and William Jarvis were going to be of a great help to me in the coming months and perhaps years.

The cane came down slamming hard across both cheeks of my cook's delectable buttocks and quickly retracted back up again. I later discovered this is in direct contrast to the system of caning used in Southeast Asia where the cane is carried through, effectively making the pain doubly as bad as when it is retracted after the stroke.

He paused then but I was more concerned with watching Cora. I couldn't believe it but while every muscle in her so athletic body was tensioning and wriggling, she didn't utter a peep. Such courage! I was sure I could never have taken such a horribly painful stroke across my own buttocks if it had been me down there and I think in that moment I now understood why my aunt had almost never attended one of the sessions.

Robert had not pulled that stroke. He was required to deliver it at full strength and he had. He waited and then delivered the second stroke - and still she didn't make a sound.

My eyes had been fixed on her buttocks. Like the rest of them, hers were tight, narrow, heavily scalloped and I think what is normally called boyish. And for some strange reason, I now ached to move forward and run my fingers and palms over those so beautiful nates, delighting in the softness but also the now very apparent welts that had formed.

At the moment of impact, the flesh had naturally indented, succumbing to the power of the rattan cane but as it had retracted, it had formed a deathly-white line across both cheeks although this had quickly changed to pink, rose, red, and then a horrible puce-colour as her body sought to cure the injury.

Oh, how I wanted to step in and stop this whole horrible procedure. Surely it wasn't necessary? These slaves seemed so happy and contented in their employment at Bromley...

Beside me, Emanuel whispered to me that it was very necessary and he would discuss it with me later. I nodded and smiled but I fear it was rather a wintry expression.

The strokes continued until Cora's buttocks were a right mess. The Jarvis' moved in and released her to be replaced by Amelia and now as I looked at the expression on Cora's face, I marvelled. One would have expected that she would have been moaning and groaning and her face at least woebegone.

Not a bit of it! For all the pain that must have been ravaging her bottom, her face was now really happy, presumably because her share of the pain that day was already over. Actually, she asked Jarvis if she could be excused as she wanted to start preparing my dinner.