Chapter 1

 

I know my story will sound unbelievable. Hell, I can hardly credit it myself. But every word I am going to set down here really happened to me. It is all crystal clear in my mind. I am not a drug user nor do I overindulge in liquor. As it happens I am an athlete. A track and field competitor and if I do say so myself, I have been doing pretty well at it over the last few months.

Was it here? On this world, I mean... I honestly don't know. I used to love that TV show called The Sliders where every episode, the stars ended up in some world that looked like ours but where weird things happened to them and where the local social mores were quite different from ours. Some of my companions in misery and my master told me that's what it was and I can only think it must have been indeed something like that for I know that what happened to me could not have taken place here...

Anyway, here is my story, for what it's worth:

 

I wasn't transported down a worm-hole. It wasn't anything like that. There was just this shimmering effect. Like I was seeing everything through a pane of glass and then it sort-of rippled. There was no noise. No nothing, really. I had been at an athletics meet all day and was at my apartment luxuriating in a long hot bath and reflecting on my win. It had brought me up another notch in the ratings and I was really pleased for it placed me much closer to my goal: to represent Australia in the next Olympics.

Anyway, I got out of the bath and got dressed. My boyfriend, Peter (also a track star) was coming to pick me up and we were going to Romano's for dinner.

He didn't turn up, but two policemen did. "You are Penelope Rome, aged nineteen and you work at City Sports?"

"Yes," I said, looking puzzled at the two officers.

"You are under arrest for embezzlement," said one and then went on with the usual spiel about me not having to say anything, etc.

"There must be some mistake," I said.

He sighed. "Don't they all say that... Come along with us, Miss."

 

Down at the station they presented me with overwhelming evidence I had been cooking the books for months. I protested my innocence but it was all there before me and my words sounded hollow, even to me.

I was not given bail but since I had no money I wasn't surprised - then. The court hearing made me wonder, though. It was quick - held the next day and if it wasn't a kangaroo court, I don't know what is!

In short order I had been found guilty and arraigned for sentence. The evidence was presented and I have to admit it all rang true. But once I stood up before the judge and listened to his words I really stared and I think I screamed as he told me my punishment.

"Penelope Rome. You have been found guilty of the dreadful crime of stealing from your employers. You are hereby sentenced to ten years of penal slavery... Take her away."

Penal slavery? What the hell was that? I had heard of penal servitude. That was the technical term of imprisonment but slavery? Slavery didn't exist except in some remote African places and perhaps the Middle East... Not here in Australia, anyway.

"I will appeal!" I shouted.

He just smiled. "Leave to appeal is denied - and for your impertinence, the sentence is now fifteen years. Get her out of my court."

I slumped as the two court officials dragged me back out of the dock and down the stairs to the holding cells below the court-house. I tried to ask what penal slavery was but they just stared at me and told me not to be so stupid. Clearly I was supposed to know what it was.

I was only kept in the holding cells for two days then a man came and looked at those of us under this dreadful sentence. "All prisoners will strip," ordered the man in charge, as he and his companion stared in at us. There were four other women in the cell with me and eight men in the next cell. He obviously meant all of us as I noticed the men as well as my companions beginning to take off their clothes. I resisted, however. I wasn't going to strip in front of all these people. An officer soon taught me the error of my ways however. He opened the door, marched in and began to tear the clothes off me body while my companions looked at me in puzzlement. The officer tore my blouse off (copping a good feel of my breasts as he did so) then slapped my face, hard, and asked if I would now strip myself. I nodded. It was obviously quite normal here - wherever here was.

We now had to stand in a line facing the bars, stark naked, our sex openly exposed to the stares of the man and the officers. "Hands up on the backs of heads. Legs wide apart," barked the man in charge.

My companions jumped to obey so I did likewise but now my face burned with shame that my body was so obscenely exposed to these people.

"Now twist bodies. Display yourselves. Jump to it!" he barked again.

I didn't know then what made my companions so scared of this man that they obeyed his horrible orders so quickly but I sensed it must be pretty terrible, so I did as they did. We, both the men in the next cell and the other girls with me, now paraded our flesh for the inspection of this man.

He looked in at us for long minutes then spoke: "Alright, I'll take them all," he said to the officer, signing a document the man held out to him.

We were not permitted to dress. Just as we were, stark naked, males and females, we were led out of the cell block to the yard at the back of the court-house where waited a large van. Our hands were cuffed behind us and we were then connected by a chain that went between our legs and was locked to the handcuffs and made to jump up into the van. The door was closed on us and locked. There were no seats so we sat on the wooden floor.

"Where are we going?" I asked no-one in particular.

They all stared at me as if I was a moron but then one of them, a nice-looking young man, spoke up: "That man is one of our local slavers. You didn't know? You're not from here?"

"No. Actually, may I ask where 'here' is. I seem to be very confused at this moment."

He smiled. He really was a nice young man. "Why, this is Australia. Melbourne to be precise. Where did you think it was?"

"Um. Er, what year is it then?"

Now he frowned a little. "Er, it's 1999. Look, who are you?"

"My name is Penny Rome and I thought I was in Melbourne and the year 1999 but slavery...? We don't have slavery in my Melbourne."

"Ah," he said, as if all was now clear. "You must be an off-worlder. Tell me, what was the last thing you remembered that was normal." I explained about the bath and the shimmering effect and he nodded. "Ah, yes. Someone has transported you to our world."

Then he, and he others, all wanted to know about my Melbourne and I sort-of forgot about my nakedness and that I was facing fifteen years as a penal slave. The truck lurched about and we hung on to each other for dear life but we became friends in that journey. I was glad the others didn't tell me what lay ahead. I think I would have broken down and cried had I known. As it was, I faced each new terror when it came - somehow I think that's easier.

The truck arrived at our destination and a short time afterwards the two huge back doors opened. I stared out at the yard as we were ordered to our feet and out. It was what I imagined the slave barracks of the old South of the USA must have been like. There was a white-painted building at the front and we had come in from the street under a part of the second storey. The gates leading out to the road were now closed, however. In the middle of the brick-paved courtyard in which we now stood was a fearsome item. It was a scaffold and dangling from it, upside down, was a naked young man. His buttocks were dreadfully marked. I shuddered as I stared at his body.

Down both sides of the courtyard and at the back was one long, low, U-shaped building that enclosed the courtyard totally and was divided into sections that looked like zoo cages. They were barred in front and each cage was separated from the next by more iron bars. They were roofed with tiles and inside were just piles of straw. Also inside were more slaves. Naked human beings who stood up at the front of each cage, staring out at us in misery.

I shuddered yet again. Penal slavery! So this is what it was. It was as if we had gone back two centuries in time. Men and women as chattels to others. But then I thought again. Every single one of these slaves were naked. Stark naked. Slaves of old hadn't been kept naked, I was sure of that. Did these people keep all their slaves naked? I hoped not. I don't think I am a prude but I had never been one to flaunt my body in front of others, even to my boyfriends.

The man who had bought us now led us over to the dangling boy. "Be warned, slaves. I am a fair slave trader but I do not brook disobedience or slackness on the part of a slave. This boy was impudent once too often. He has been caned on his buttocks fifty times. It is a severe punishment but I will warrant he will be a little more polite in the future."

I grabbed at the hand of the boy who had been nice to me in the van and he pressed my hand back. I felt a little comforted. I've used the term 'boy' here for he was only a boy really. Hell, each of us new prisoners - oops, slaves, were only in our twenties and looking around the barracks, I was pretty sure they were all of a similar age. I asked Billy why we were all so young. "Criminals over thirty are executed, Penny," he whispered.

I just about choked. Executed? Surely not?

Anyway, now that we had seen what would happen to us if we didn't toe the line, we were allocated cages. All of us five women were placed in one cage and the men split up between two more. It was now late afternoon and time for our meal. Swill, I should say, for that's exactly what they fed us. There was a trough at the front of each cage and a guard came out pushing a barrow of sorts. In it was our swill and as he came to each cage he tipped a portion into each of our troughs. We had now to get down on our hands and knees, heads down, bum up and feed, like the animals they now considered us to be.

I was hungry. If the only way I could get sustenance was like this, then I wasn't going to stand on my dignity. I think we even snuffled like pigs as we shoved back and forth, trying to get our share of the swill. It was tasty, actually, even if it was a mush. Then, replete, we moved to the back of the cell and snuggled down in the straw. It prickled my naked flesh but it was getting cold outside and I knew only the straw would stave off the chill air. I didn't sleep much. All that had happened to me over the last two days was so mind-boggling I could hardly come to grips with it. Could it all be real? I pinched myself just to make sure I wasn't dreaming and that shortly I would wake up and laugh off a bad dream.

Alas, it wasn't to be.

I woke up all right but it was in that cage and buried in the straw surrounded by four other young women. Soon enough there was this dreadful rattling sound. It was the guards running their truncheons along the bars, rousing us for the day.