The slaves of Freetown

CHAPTER ONE

Because of Isaac and the mission he entrusted me with, it is the third time in a row that Mistress Salvi occupies for me the role of Weekmistress. As she does not like me much, it is the third time in a row that on a Saturday evening, around eight o'clock, I wait in the rain outside of – as a slave I am not permitted to set foot inside – the pharmacy on 8th Avenue, while she is getting her treatment for her rheumatisms.

Crouching in front of the glass door, I watch another cab stop to let a Master off. He immediately takes shelter under an umbrella. He smiles at me, a little sorry, before entering the pharmacy. Masters' pity is worse than their cruelty, but I do not have the right to let my annoyance show. I shake my head and turn my attention back to the road. The cab starts up again in a hurry, rolls over a puddle raising a wave of water that falls heavily on the pavement.

The raindrops have been coming through the thin layer of tissue, covering my body, as if I was wearing nothing. I can no longer keep the coughing fit tickling my throat, but I know that I am being watched by my Mistress, through the pharmacy window. I clear my throat and swallow the wave of nausea that accompanies the cough. Shivering, I sneeze again into my elbow and notice that I do not feel my left arm, completely uncovered, too much anymore. I wipe my nose with a less dirty part of the jacket and then resume the fight against the pain caused by the numbness in my fingers, focusing my attention on my wrists. I tap the metal bracelets – my chains – with my nails to reproduce the melody of a BTS song Imane made me listen to. To make matters worse, lightning struck regularly over the last few days. I hate lightning, but thunder is terrifying.

These apocalyptic weather conditions were still not enough to impress the BLM protesters, whose parade still left traces on the sidewalks – I struggled to find somewhere clean enough to put Mistress Salvi's shopping bags –, although the movement somewhat struggles to find new supporters, compared to its beginnings. Forbidden by the government to the slaves under the stoning threat, and to the Masters-Activists under the enslavement ultimatum, President Trump's response to the riots has lived up to the expectations of its electorate. Ho-Jin, who disobeyed our father to go to the protest said that the police were ruthless. Especially with the slaves.

I lift one of my Mistress' bags to bring it closer to the small space that I am occupying and shelter it from the rain. But someone pushes me and the bag, which slips out of my sore hands, falls heavily on the others. The slave, a little white boy whom I met several times in Freetown without knowing his name, interrupts his excuses when he sees the tattoo on my left arm. I avoid lingering on his face, recently disfigured by some Masters-Avengers, but a feeling of disgust raises in my throat again. He throws a horrified look over my shoulder.

"They're coming! They're mean ones! Go away!" he articulates breathlessly.

He resumes his run. I turn around to check for what he is escaping from and meet a look that I know only too well – that of a Master in need of sensation. I curse this little boy for being such a bad omen. Today, unlike the day before, has so far gone smoothly, except for the sharp remarks of Mistress Salvi and a few citizens who bumped into me. The usual, the minimum, but now comes another egotist dilemma; I have to think of my family first.

"What do you want? Why are you looking at me, you dirty Object? Isn't it enough for you to be black and a slave? You want me to make you handicapped too, like that white Thing? Or would you rather be emasculated?" the black Master apostrophes me, waving his iPhone in front of me.

I exert by the force of habit, the assiduousness of the training, a control contorting my features in a sincere indifference and motionlessness. Only my clenched fists betray me. The Master is followed by a little group of adolescents around my age. He gives his phone to one of the two girls who records us as he keeps pushing me around. Adrenalin hits me; I am scared, and in this situation, any of my movements will be interpreted as disobedience. I am afraid, not of the Master, but of what I want to do to him and the consequences that these actions will have afterwards. Often, as Sunday approaches, when I lose control of my emotions more easily, my body no longer follows my will.