Chapter 1

 

I am a self-made billionaire.

My father was (and is) an eminently successful stockbroker and my two sisters and I lived in relative luxury all our young lives. We had a big house in Toorak, Melbourne's premier suburb, set in large grounds and with many slaves to serve our every need.

I didn't receive a penny from Dad, however. From him (and Mother), we had love and attention but we weren't spoiled. From my earliest remembrances, we had to work for our pocket money and our chores had to be performed to the best of our abilities and on time - or we weren't paid.

From them we also learned thrift. All three of us had bank accounts and we were taught to save and not to spend on useless or frivolous items. When I was old enough, at age eleven, I recall, I went out cutting lawns for our neighbours and from that developed other money-making jobs such as cleaning windows, etc. All, or most of my income from these small enterprises went into my bank account and it was the same with my sisters.

At the dining table, Dad often spoke of the art of assessing a company's worth and I quickly found I had an aptitude for this as well. When I was about twelve, he took to inviting me into his study for rather more detailed discussions on economics, commerce and corporate evaluation. I soaked it all up like a sponge and with his encouragement, began to buy (in a small way) into various companies.

He taught me to divide my investments into speculative, high-return stock and safer, but still good-yielding shares and to understand the difference. "I should never risk a cent on speculative stock that I wasn't prepared to lose," he told me. As I said, I took it all in but then I found I had a flair for it that even surpassed his and my wealth began to grow - very rapidly. I re-invested all profits and by the time I was eighteen I was already close to rating as a millionaire.

This is not to say I didn't have a normal childhood though, engaging in sports and other normal teen-age pursuits and of course discovering sex. It quickly became an abiding interest and although Dad never encouraged me to go all the way with my girlfriends, I did, at least with some of them. I also discovered that I swung both ways and found some of my liaisons with boys of my own age to be just as pleasant.

By the year 2059, all residual prejudice against homosexual activity was long gone, especially as it was now well established that what we are is in us from birth and while society's morés may well guide us away from our natural bent, it is not healthy to do so. Accordingly, most men and women (and boys and girls for that matter) try out all kinds of love-making as they pass through adolescence. In my own case, I tend to gravitate to females - as long as they are athletic.

I find this is my abiding passion in assessing a sexual partner, be he male or female. Unless he or she has a superbly toned body, I am simply not interested in him or her. I also found that long-term relationships weren't for me. I know that is the norm in us Homo Sapiens but I just wasn't interested in developing such a relationship. Of course I made sure my short-term partners were well aware of my attitude in this regard.

That was another of the ethics that Mother and Dad instilled into us: work hard and become rich by all means; but do it without hurting others. You can do well in life without climbing over others to get there and all three of us have, I believe, lived to that rule all our lives so far.

Of course that doesn't apply to slaves.

Perhaps I should mention here that organised, institutional slavery was re-established on Earth in the middle of the third decade of the new millennium and it is now strongly rooted in every nation. Its revival came about from a worldwide recognition that crime was out of control and that conventional means of punishing it were not working.

I think it might have been America that started the ball rolling, creating slavery for fixed terms instead of jail. Convicted felons were sold to the highest bidder for the term of their sentence and of course lifers meant just that: for the term of their natural life. Other countries quickly followed suit and once that happened, other means of making slaves became the norm.

For example, to save his family, a person could sell him or herself for a period or if necessary even for life to extinguish a debt. Once this was accepted, the courts began to offer slavery of a defendant to a successful plaintiff and eventually this became the norm. Over the years, more and more offences, both criminal and civil carried slavery as the standard punishment and as slaves became common, dealing in them also developed.

At first, any child born to a slave became the responsibility of her owner - but not a slave him or herself. The owner had to rear the child and educate him but then he was free to go his own way. This was found to be impractical and was changed so that the offspring of slaves were slaves themselves and could be bought and sold with (or without) their mother. It sounds harsh but the older system didn't work and no-one wanted a return to orphanages or the like.

From the very first, slaves were property and could be bought and sold like cattle. They ceased to be citizens - ceased almost to be considered human beings while they were slaves. At first, sentences tended to follow the former jail terms for the crime involved but over the years, they became longer and longer, thus, while at first you might be sentenced to a year's slavery for a serious traffic breach, nowadays you would be facing a minimum of ten years and life sentences are common for a great many offences.

An owner may, with the consent of the court and upon bringing evidence of his or her reform, free a slave after at least half his sentence has elapsed if he or she so wishes but this has proved rare, owners seeming to prefer to retire a slave on his own property, perhaps with light duties.

This was the society into which we were born and we considered it perfectly normal, especially as it worked! The reign of terror that had engulfed the world from the end of the first decade of the millennium, and by this I mean the crime wave as well as terrorism per se, slowed down markedly, especially as sentences began to climb and a criminal or terrorist now faced decades as the personal property of another man for their crimes.

As I said, we had slaves at my father's house. They were considered more as servants than slaves, however, my parents permitting them the maximum clothing allowed for a slave: the skirt-like, wrap-around waist cloth and sleeveless shirt. That was the most a slave was allowed to wear but total nudity was also quite acceptable as the shame of being totally bared, even including the genitals - as an animal - was considered an important part of a criminal's punishment.

As non-citizens, slaves could be used for just about anything and for as long as you wished. Intentionally killing a slave was not permitted but you could work them almost to death if you wished. Few did, however, and in our house they were given as much consideration as the law allowed. They were fed well, worked not much longer hours than paid domestic servants might have been and were rarely used as sexual playthings.

This was very, very unusual. Slaves were quickly recognised as eminently suitable bed-slaves, even by a man and his wife. A male slave might be brought into their bed and made to fuck the wife while the husband raped him. Accordingly, dealers who specialised in 'fancies', as they became known, had them trained in just about every aspect of sex then known to man - and very quickly, other, newer variations developed. Sex, therefore, soon became a specialty of this class of slaves.

Of course not all slaves were good-looking enough for such employment. Many were simply used as low-grade labourers or menials. But many owners soon recognised that slaves could become adornments to his or her own standing in the community and spent a lot of time, effort and resources in training them even further so they became real show ponies. A whole new form of entertainment soon built up around these fancies: they were shown off, much as cattle and horses and pigs had been at local agricultural shows.

It was this environment that I grew up in and as my sexual awareness (and expertise) began to assert itself, my mind began to explore the future. At eighteen, I was already almost a millionaire and it became obvious to all of us that sending me to university would be a waste of their time and mine. I already knew as much about stocks and shares as Dad and had made more money over the last year than he had. I had a flair for it which was partly due to his training and partly inbuilt (I suspect). Formally studying economics and/or commerce would be of little value, we thought.

I stayed on at home, though. I had no wish to leave the nest just yet although I was already planning my home. It was going to be in Queensland as I loved the warm climate and easy lifestyle up there and I wanted to develop my life separately from my parents, much and all as I loved them both. They understood and even came up to Queensland with me to explore the possibilities.

I found an island in the Broadwater of the Gold Coast, that fabulous strip of land a hundred kilometres south of Brisbane and as soon as I saw it, knew that was where I was going to live. By this time, at twenty, I was a multi-millionaire and could easily afford to buy the island, which was quite bare of buildings although it had some good vegetation. It was about five hectares in size which was perfect for my ideas.

When we returned home to Melbourne, I spent many pleasant hours with the maps I had brought back with me, planning where the buildings were going and how they would blend in with the island.

And still I continued to make money. As my confidence and base resources grew, I began to risk more (since I could now afford to lose more) on speculative ventures and since I seemed to be able to judge the companies and the men and women who ran them pretty well, I made few mistakes. By the time I was twenty-one, I was already worth half a billion dollars and so I was well able to afford the very best buildings for my island.

It had no permanent bridge to the mainland and that was the way I wanted it. I had a retractable bridge built that could be operated much like the early garage doors openers. As I approached the turn to the island, the bridge telescoped out from the island. It was only for small vehicles of course but that was all right. We didn't want trucks over there: anything heavy was brought in by helicopter.

I won't go into the building stage. It was enjoyable to watch as they took shape and then my island came alive. I was at last ready to move in and to acquire the slaves who would run it for me - and give me the pleasure I now craved above all else - even over making more and more millions!

Of course by now I had had a great range of sexual partners, good and bad and was able to recognise that good sex is not just 'doing what come naturally'. It has to be learned and, like the fancies who were trained by the specialists employed by the better dealers, I apprenticed myself to certain experts in both Melbourne and later Brisbane whom I thought could teach me their tricks.

And that leads me to another point. As I said, I was only attracted to athletic partners and my slaves were going to be the very best I could find in that regard. But they would still need to be trained and their bodies maintained in the perfection I was going to demand. I therefore needed a trainer. Of course I also needed someone to run my house but I didn't want dozens of paid servants around me. While I could have total control over my slaves, that wasn't quite as true of servants. Accordingly, what I wanted was a trainer who could also double as my major-domo; a person skilled in household management.

I found him, or her as it turned out, in Marcia Lines. She had a stunning body, which was what attracted me to her in the first place but while she couldn't be called beautiful, her face and her whole demeanour bespoke authority and determination. You knew at a glance that you didn't cross her lightly.

She was tall, 176 cm and as I say, her body was fabulous. She lifted wights, but not to build huge muscle bulk. Her muscles were apparent and as clean-cut as you like, but they weren't overdone. She was strong though. Phew, was she strong! I was hard-put to beat her in many of our strength contests in the gym and I'm no pushover, I can assure you.

She had dark brown wavy hair, big brown eyes and a beautiful skin that set off her muscles to a tee. Her shoulders were broad and her breasts just perfect in size and shape. Indeed her whole physique could not have been bettered, at leat not in my opinion.

I saw her first at an IronMan competition where she easily outstripped all her female competitors. In her professional life, she was a personal trainer, as she told me when I sought her out after the meet and offered her dinner. At first I didn't mention my plans for her, leaving it to her to tell me as much about herself as she wanted and responding somewhat guardedly to her own questions about me and my background. I did tell her I had come up from Melbourne and that I was 'into shares', but said nothing about my real wealth or my plans for my island.

It turned out she had a thing for order and discipline as well as punishing herself unmercifully to achieve her goals. I encouraged her to expand on this theme and she did so very willingly. It was a real thing for her apparently.

She believed a household or business, or really, any worthwhile undertaking at all, ought to be approached scientifically, evaluated properly and then pursued diligently to the absolute best of one's ability. As she said these words, my eyes lit up. This was the stuff I wanted to hear!

I asked her how she felt about slaves and then she really took off. Her eyes gleamed, her breasts rose and she leaned across the table towards me. "It is my opinion that most slave-owners are total wimps when it comes to running their slaves, David. Slaves ought to be cared for properly but they are slaves and they ought to be treated as such. They are no longer citizens; scarcely humans at all, and they ought to be worked as hard as they are capable of. They must be made to perform their tasks better than any servant and punished when they don't. Oh how I wish I could be given a few slaves to train and discipline..."

I stared at her. She really meant it and I knew she was sincere in her attitude. "Would you really give up your clients to take on such a task, Marcia?" I asked, casually, as if merely making a polite response to her vehemence.

She grinned - briefly - at me but then frowned. "Oh yes. I have wanted to become a slave trainer all my adult life. From before that actually ... ever since I understood what slavery really was, actually."

I sat there and stared at her, my eyes taking in her handsome face and its clean lines, the set in her brown eyes and the toss to her gleaming, wavy brown hair ... sat there staring until she began to fidget in embarrassment, at which I hastily apologised.

"It's just that you are exactly what I have been looking for, Marcia..."

"Looking for? You mean you are a slaveholder?"

"No, not yet, but I am going to be, very soon, and I want someone to not only train them physically and mentally to be the very best there is, but also to run my household so that I don't even know it is happening..."

She stared back at me for a few moments but then smiled - broadly. "You are a lot more than you have let on, aren't you, Mr David Hetherington? Exactly what is it that you do?"

I grinned back at her. "Yes, I have been a little circumspect about myself. I haven't lied to you - just not told you the whole truth.

"As it happens, I too have had a thing about slaves from an early age. I now have the means to put those ideas into practice and I think in you, I have found the person to carry them out. I have acquired an island in the Broadwater on the Gold Coast and have just about finished constructing my house and associated buildings and am therefore ready to begin acquiring slaves to run it all for me.

"I don't want lots of servants around me. Just one employee to train and run the slaves..."

"And you think that might be me?"

"I do. Are you interested?"

"When can we see the island?" she said.