A Picture is Worth About a Thousand Words

In the mountains west of Cesena, Italy, west of Modigliana, there is a village that to this day retains its time-honored traditional practices and customs. The wedding of the village chief’s son was an important matter for the whole village, and everyone was invited to the reception. The bride and groom were beautiful, both families were joyful, everyone wished them prosperity and happiness.

And prosper they did, for almost a year, until one day, Carlo disappeared. Everyone was concerned, for no trace of the husband could be found anywhere. Until the white silk scarf turned up on a Greek freighter flagged from Thessaloniki. This was returned to one of Fletcher’s agents and explains his disappearance. According to the captain, the scarf was tied hard around the cock and balls of a bound male brought on board half conscious, naked, and struggling. The captain assumed it was per normal and part of his crew’s entertainment. They were in port for the week.

Written on the scarf in a beautiful old-style Italian calligraphy were the words: “O, caro mio! Arrivederci. You promised me and God that you'd be true. I promised God and my brothers that if you were not, they could have you.” Presumably that was the brothers first and God could wait. The boy had been thrown away. He’d gone from his wife to her brothers to the ship’s crew, to our agent, and finally to Fletcher House.

The crew I spoke with described converging stories of a weeks-long transit from Genoa to Charleston Harbor in which disputes over who should have the boy of an evening were common, with the mechanics and engineers taking firsts and then sneering and giving it over to everyone else only after pointing out the cum leaking from its ass. The first mate was happy to take seconds, and did so several nights. He loved how slippery the leaking cum was on the boy’s thigh, and how he would hump it until he was ready to slip into that tight ass and just pound it until he came.

The captain, by and by, came to understand the situation and determined to lose the boy at the first port he came to. This was Charleston, where an agent of a certain sort took possession. This agent then contacted people who contacted Fletcher’s gamekeeper and a meeting was quickly arranged and transfer of goods affected. The boy was put in a cage and loaded onto a step van for two days of driving. Its shit bucket was emptied when it was fed at night and in the morning. On arrival at Fletcher House it was taken from its cage and chained strappado before the entrance to the slave quarters. It stood there, in pain and confusion for two hours until the gamekeeper’s assistant came to confront the boy. “You have been sold to me. You are now my slave.”

Carlo replied in gasps, “I am not a slave, I have been betrayed, I have been kidnapped. I am Carlo Gabrielli and no one’s slave.”

The gamekeeper’s assistant seized the boy’s hair in his fist, pulled its head in front of his face and said patiently, “Say to me, ‘I am your slave, I beg to enter your service.’ And then we’ll get you something to eat and see you cleaned up. I promise, you’ll feel much better.” The boy stared at the man dumbly for a moment and then forced out the words, “You must contact my father. You will be rewarded.”

At a sign, a trainer came over and slowly and methodically applied a stun gun to the boy several times and in places it was certain to be most painful. An hour later the gamekeeper’s man returned and put the same order to the boy, but only after he’d explained in clear language that every slave to enter service in Fletcher House has made this confession and plea and that the current torture would go on until he uttered the pass phrase -- or died, no one’s slave. “There are always choices, and you will make your choice here, today. You will choose to live or die. It is in your hands.”

As foggy as the boy was after his ordeals, this last part started turning the wheels -- it was clear to see, this was the end for him, or the beginning of another life. Really, it was both. The end of his life as Carlo had already happened. He was coming to accept that, but he would have to mourn that later when there was time. Just now he could be dying. But no, dying would not be by choice right now. So, life then. In this new life, he would secretly be Ali Baba and open the magic cave with the “open sesame” demanded here: “I am your slave, I beg to enter your service.” The boy repeated this in his head over and over until it finally gurgled out of him just before another stun gun shock could be delivered.

And the boy’s life changed in that moment. The cable was unfastened from its wrists, handlers marched the boy to the slave’s portal and put it on its knees just before the door. The gamekeeper’s assistant hammered the doorknocker twice and stepped back. The door opened and a man came out to the boy. “Who are you?” he asked in a booming voice. The boy looked up and said, “I am a slave.” The man regarded him for a moment and asked in the same voice, “Why have you come?”

The boy continued to look up at the man before him and choked out his response, “I beg to enter your service.”

“Very well then,” said the man. “May you be worth your feed.” He motioned to the handlers to bring the boy in, turned on his heel, and led them all through the slave portal at Fletcher House.