Runaway

It was a good thing Carolyn Jeanne was a southern belle, or she wouldn’t have known how to drive. In Mississippi, women could still learn that, but here in Illinois the law prohibited women from driving. On the other hand, if she hadn’t been a southern belle she wouldn’t have needed to drive today. And on the third hand, she’d been fortunate. Fortunate that the late-October day was cool enough to justify concealing clothing, but still clear and sunny, and even more fortunate to have found the twelve year old Plymouth. Her driving skills were as rusty as the car itself, but at least it was the same model as she had learned in, back in 1946.

Still she had managed to pull into the DeGland Motor Court without disaster, helped by the fact that it was still an hour before sunset. Now she started toward the office, wearing a young man’s clothing, and she reminded herself to walk like a man as well. That skill was even rustier than her driving. Her feet felt strange, shod and yet unencumbered by the chain of a hobble, and her neck felt naked, without its collar.

The steel collar was in her duffle bag, back in the car. Before setting out, she had dithered between hiding it under a shirt and tie, and removing it altogether. Then the lock-screw broke, forcing the decision on her. That was the biggest danger of all. If anyone were to catch her without her collar, she’d be in trouble. But if they didn’t catch her, going collarless could end up being even worse for her.

She entered the office. “May I help you?” asked the attendant, an actual young man of the sort Carolyn was only pretending to be.

“My name is Jonathon Harper,” Carolyn said. “I need a room for the night.”

Lester Harper pulled into the DeGland Motor Court after a nine hour drive, arriving just past sunset in his new 1958 Ford. In the office, he introduced himself to the attendant, adding, “My son should have mentioned me when he arrived.”

“Oh. Yes.” The attendant shuffled paper. “He’s in Unit Five.” He looked up at the older man. “Sir, I did give him both keys, so you’ll have to ask him for one.”

“That’s perfect,” Lester answered with a smile.

Carolyn started when she heard the knock on the door. She was barefoot now, dressed in a pale green nightgown. Her honey-blonde hair fell loose, no longer tied up and hidden. The Mark of Sheba and the s-number tattooed on the back of her left hand were visible as well, the makeup that had covered them washed off. And her collar was around her neck again, if only latched on rather than being properly locked.

‘Jonathon’ was gone. His clothes and cap hung neatly on the small rack provided, but he was absent. If anyone asked about him, Carolyn would say, “He’s away right now, but should be returning soon.” At this moment, she was not running the risk of being caught in a man’s disguise. But even so…

“Who is it?” Carolyn called out. In her own voice, rather than the deeper one she used as Jonathon.

“It’s me, Carolyn,” her master’s voice answered. “Open the door, and we can settle this without a fuss.”

After the Civil War, the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery in the United States. It then began to creep back in – for women. In Missie vs. Montgomery, the Supreme Court ruled that the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments only applied to black men. Then in 1920 the Nineteenth, or “Demancipation,” Amendment was ratified, making all women, regardless of race or color, into the chattels of their menfolk.

Perhaps it would have been otherwise if Jane Wilma Booth hadn’t assassinated President Lincoln, or if Lincoln’s wife, ‘Mad Mary,’ hadn’t attempted her coup afterwards. Or if the psychic abilities first revealed in the late nineteenth century hadn’t been so powerful. Or if the feminists of that era hadn’t provoked a backlash by using those psychic abilities against their opponents. But all those things did happen, which was why all the women in America (and most of the women in the rest of the world) now wore the marks of enslavement.

Lester entered the cabin and looked around the room. Pale paneling on the walls gave it a rustic air, appropriate for a place in the middle of nowhere, a couple of hundred miles west of Chicago. A bed with pink-flowered cover occupied most of the room, along with two upright wooden chairs between a small desk-table. A clothes-rack stood near the door, and on the far wall a mirror hung over a sink, with the toilet and shower tucked out of sight. The lights were an older style that combined mechanical switches with psychic ones. Most men today didn’t need that, but could trigger the psychic switch with a gesture and a thought.

Women generally had more psychic ability than men, along with a greater degree of mental fragility. But Carolyn was a house slave, rather than a bond witch. She was also smart, and – usually – level-headed. So why did she do this?

“First things first,” Lester said, opening his suitcase. “Hobble yourself.” He pulled out a set of special leg irons, ankle-cuffs rubber-coated as usual but with a short solid rod connecting them instead of a chain. “Security hobbles for you tonight,” he added with a grin of genuine pleasure. “Barefoot hobbles. I like that.”

Carolyn managed a weak smile in return. She sat in one of the chairs and complied with Lester’s command, setting the lock first on her right ankle and then her left, as Lester watched. She had average height for a woman, which made her a few inches shorter than him. Her round face had a small, upturned nose, a peaches-and-cream complexion, and amber eyes that matched her straight hair. Her bosom was definitely there, but concealable with an effort. As she had proven.

Lester perched on the bed and told himself to stop delaying. Carolyn gave him an excuse to continue. “How did you find me, master?” she asked.

He pulled out a pair of copper wires. “Divining rods, keyed to your collar,” he explained. “The dealer included them when I bought you, and they’ve been sitting in the back of my dresser drawer.” His voice grew harsher. “For years. And they could have stayed there. Why Carolyn?”

Carolyn looked down at her bare feet. Her voice, when it came, was even softer than usual. “I could tell you why, master. But you wouldn’t believe me.”

Lester clamped his jaw shut on his angry words. He really did want to settle this without a fuss. He wanted to treat Carolyn’s trip out here as a feminine lark, rather than as an escape attempt that had to be brought to official notice. He wanted to be able to hold her, and whisper into her ear, “I forgive you.” Or better yet, “Yes, you did the right thing.” If he could.

Carolyn had pulled larks and stunts before, usually to confirm something for one of her stories. Like that time she had her cousins teach her to drive, when they visited her old home in Mississippi. But she had always warned him, had gotten his blessing beforehand, and this time she hadn’t.

His anger drained away as he recognized the fear behind it. He had hoped (and still hoped) that Carolyn would confess to a silly impulse that had gotten out of hand. Failing that, she could spin a tale he would pretend to believe. She was good at spinning tales. She wrote stories and even got them published, in various popular magazines, and he was proud of her for that. But if she didn’t expect to be believed…

“Carolyn,” he asked, trying to ignore the cold lump in his gut. “Did you take your collar off?”

“Yes, master,” she said. “The lock-screw broke.”

The cold lump grew bigger. Prior to Demancipation, women had been enslaved only when they needed it, only when their psychic abilities were strong enough to drive them mad if they weren’t. Demancipation had changed that. Its theory was that feminine enslavement needed to be egalitarian. That all women needed to lose their freedom for the sake of social stability, rather than for the sake of their individual sanity. But in practice this had turned collaring into a psychic construct. After Demancipation (and even more so after the War) any woman without a steel slave collar around her neck would soon go mad, because people believed that she would. It might take a few hours, or it might take a few days, but (commie propaganda to the contrary) no woman could long resist that collective force.

“Well,” Lester said briskly. “We can fix that right away.” He ignored the quiet thought, if it isn’t already too late, as he rummaged in his suitcase. “I have a spare lock-screw here – it came with the divining rods.”

Three minutes later, and the repair was done. “There!” Lester said. “Good as new. You can tell me your story later. In the mean time, we have a cabin and a bed.” Yes, that was the ticket. They would have a romp here out here in the countryside, and then Carolyn would confess to following a silly impulse. He would forgive her and take her back home, without a fuss. He might have to apply greater security to her for a time, or even a light punishment, but she would understand. In the end, it would all blow over. He patted the pink bedspread. “Stretch yourself out, and we’ll amuse ourselves.”

Carolyn tested her bonds and found them secure. Her ankles were still locked in the rubber-coated cuffs, but now the barefoot hobble was roped down to the foot of the bed. Her arms were spread to either side, held there by ropes that tethered her wrists to the bed’s upper corners. A familiar gag was buckled behind her head, with the plug in her mouth concealing a twist of orichalcum wire. The psychic metal made the gag feel bigger than it was, and muffled her voice to a quiet mew.

“And are we feeling comfy now?” Master Lester asked.

“Mew!” Carolyn replied.

“Good.” He knelt astride her on the bed and began to tickle.

That was just as Carolyn had expected. Often enough, she had begged the tickle from Master Lester. Starting twenty years back, when tickling was still a fad. Since then, it had gone on to become a recognized exercise for promoting a healthy mind and psyche, especially once the ‘victim’ learned to enjoy it.

And Carolyn did enjoy it. She enjoyed the irresistible squirm as her master’s fingers played up and down her ribs. She enjoyed the teasing excitement as his hands moved across her belly, pinching it very lightly. She enjoyed the tickle that ran up her arms, and back down into her armpits, sometimes with both of master’s hands tickling at once, and sometimes with them alternating with sweet attacks: First his left hand, and then his right.

“Tickle-tickle! Tickle-tickle-tickle!” Master Lester chanted as he applied the unbearably delicious tease. Unbearable because Carolyn couldn’t hold still for it – not without being tied down – and also because she wanted more.

After the first tickle-assault, Master Lester changed to a slow, almost lazy tease. His hands moved around and between her breasts, stroking through the thin fabric of her nightgown that provided no protection at all. They teasingly caressed her shoulders and her neck. They ran back down along her sides to settle in just above her hips. There the expert fingers settled for a long time, as Carolyn squirmed and mewed.

Master Lester moved aside, his hands now tickle-teasing her legs. Carolyn still felt him apply that slow and lazy tempo, but now he moved inexorably toward her bare feet. She was aware of him spending tickle-time around her knees, and especially of his touch on the soft place behind them. His hands moved on to stroke her calves, and then his fingers squirmed up and down them. “Tickle-tickle! Tickle-tickle-tickle!” his chant continued. And Carolyn couldn’t do anything but squirm and mew. She couldn’t even laugh, no matter how much she enjoyed it; the gag held the giggles inside her.

“Tickle-tickle! Tickle-tickle-tickle!” Carolyn heard her owner chant, and then came the happy assault on her helpless feet. This was a sudden and vigorous tickle, covering both the tops of her feet and the soles. First the tops of both feet got the tickle treatment. Then Master Lester focused on her right foot, tickling it all over. Bathing it with tickles. Carolyn thrashed and mewed as the tickle-delight ran up her leg. But all her attention was on that right foot. The one receiving the “Tickle-tickle! Tickle-tickle-tickle!”

A pause came; Carolyn had a brief time to recover. She saw Master Lester smiling down on her. “Mew!” she told him, faint through her gag. She lay back, blissfully relaxed while still craving more.

More came. “Tickle-tickle! Tickle-tickle-tickle!” she heard the chant again, and this time Carolyn’s left foot got the tickle. Her bare, helpless, vulnerable left foot, tickle-teased all over. Tickled on the tops of her toes and on her instep. On the arch, the heel, and the ball of the foot. On the pads of the toes and the spaces between them. Tickling and tickling, as Carolyn felt herself grow tickle-drunk. “Tickle-tickle! Tickle-tickle-tickle!” Master continued the chant while his fingers continued their dance. On and on and on the tickling continued. At some point – Carolyn couldn’t tell when – the tickling switched to the soles of both her feet at once. Bare soles of her bare feet, held helpless by the leg-irons gripping her ankles, with an inescapable “Tickle-tickle! Tickle-tickle-tickle!” being poured into them both.

“Don’t say anything yet.” Lester set the gag aside, and rearranged Carolyn’s bonds. Her ankles he left in the high-security hobbles, but he undid the rope holding them to the foot of the bed. Her arms he released and then retied behind her back. He helped her sit up in the bed, and pulled a pair of tissues from the box to wipe her face. “Now you can talk,” Lester told Carolyn.

“Yes, master,” she answered.

Lester settled back into one of the chairs and lit his pipe. Like most veterans, he’d given up cigarettes after the War, but not tobacco. He watched her closely, waiting for her to begin.

At last, Carolyn spoke. “Do you remember my cousins Chester and Sam, master?”

“You grew up with them,” Lester said. “You told me that your mother didn’t take Demancipation very well.”

“I was five, master, and I didn’t understand. I just remember that my mother broke all the dishes in the house, before they took her away to the asylum. Then Chester and Sam taught me to be a real hellcat. It was a game; we made up our secret oaths, and we were all going to be dangerous Southern Abolitionists when we grew up. But then I went on to finishing school, and then you purchased me, and then the War came. I left all that behind.”

Lester nodded. He had heard Carolyn tell this tale before. He said, “You left it all behind, except for when you learned how to drive. I remember how Samuel and Chester got all nostalgic when you asked them to teach you. And then we had to convince the local sheriff.”

The law had required Sheriff Whitemiller to issue learner’s permits to Mississippi women who applied, and he was willing, however reluctantly, to comply with that. But Lester and Carolyn were Illinois residents, and there he balked. Lester had finally convinced him to issue a learner’s permit for Carolyn – after getting cousins Samuel and Chester to shut up – but the permit was only good for two weeks, and came with an unspoken understanding that Carolyn would not then apply for an actual driver’s license.

“But Sheriff Whitemiller wanted me to learn, master. He’s practically a Samsonite in public, but he’s really a secret Southern Abolitionist. And three days ago he ordered me to kill you.”

Lester took his pipe from his mouth, but managed to stop himself before he said anything. He made a ‘go on’ gesture, instead.

“I didn’t know, master. I thought the same as everyone else. I didn’t even suspect until he called me on Wednesday. He knew my secret oath. He told me – he told me to kill you and then leave to join his crew, and then he would firebomb the house to make it look like we both had died. So I – I ran. I knew you would try to follow me, or at least do something , and I was frightened that he would kill you if I didn’t. And if we tried to go to the police, or even if I tried to tell you, then he would kill us both, right away. It was the best plan I could think of, master.”

Lester closed his eyes against the pain. It was ridiculous. Worse, it was insane. It killed the hope he had nursed, that Carolyn would confess to a minor lark that had gotten out of hand. Or, at worse, that she would tell him some blatant lie and he would pretend to believe it.

But this wasn’t a lie. It wasn’t true, but it wasn’t a lie, either. Carolyn believed that she was telling the truth. Lester knew that; he had owned her for twenty years now, and he could tell when she was lying to him. And now she wasn’t. Her story was false, impossible, and yet she wasn’t lying.

He’d been too late in fixing her collar after all.

He was going to lose Carolyn. He’d have to sell her, and drop a quiet word in the slave-dealer’s ear. Or he could take her to an asylum himself, maintaining his ownership while she underwent an almost hopeless treatment. That’s what he ought to do, but he couldn’t. It would be even worse than selling her, and he just couldn’t do it.

There was a knock at the door. Lester started, and then stood to answer it. A couple stood there: A man in a business suit and his slave woman – a bond witch with glass baubles set in her collar.

“Mr. Harper? I’m Agent Beck, FBI.” He held his badge up, and Lester gave way. The bond witch entered with the mincing steps forced on her by her heel-hobbles, followed by her owner. The FBI man closed the door behind him. “I’m glad we found you and your Carolyn safe, here,” he said with a slight smile. Then the smile vanished. “I’m afraid we have bad news, however. Your home was firebombed this morning, at approximately 9 AM. The fire department told me that it was a total loss.”