DAY ONE - Friday
It's only just past four in the morning when they start work, still dark outside and the hospital is night quiet. They go to collect the cleaning supplies from a supervisor and Jon tells him in a few hurried words to keep himself out of sight as much as possible but to do a quick and thorough job of the bathrooms.
Cleaning is not new to Greg. In the Center, once they were out of processing, the slaves would clean the building every morning, under heavy supervision. They were instructed in the right way to clean, and how best to stay out of the sight of free people as they went about their work. They had spent hours of every day on their hands and knees, scrubbing down bathrooms and floors. Any area sloppily done would be redone, many times, until the slave had learned to do it properly. Greg had been trained in how to work silently and efficiently.
Now he kneels before the urinal, wiping the floor tiles with his rag and pushes down his disappointment at learning that he is to be a janitor. He had held out a small amount of hope that he would be employed in some medical capacity, although it was made clear to him in the Center that his past qualifications mean absolutely nothing in his new life as a slave.
He thinks it is ironic, that he originally decided to become a doctor after seeing a janitor function in that capacity in Japan. He'd been in a hospital there, visiting a friend who'd been in a climbing accident, and observed a Baraku - an outcast - mopping a floor. When the doctors had been unable to help his friend they had called in the services of the Baraku. Although he was an outcast in their society they still valued his medical skills.
Now here he was, in the same capacity, a lowly slave cleaning a bathroom. He fantasizes that one day there might be a case no-one can solve and he, the lowly slave, would know the answer.
He is cleaning a fourth floor bathroom when he hears the door open and a large man walks in. He immediately stops scrubbing and drops to his knees, hands folded behind his back as he has been taught, eyes downcast and legs slightly spread. This must be the overseer Jon had spoken of - Mr Smith.
The man grunts at him, and then walks behind him and smacks the back of his bald head, hard. Greg flinches at he blow, he doesn't know what he has done wrong, he is kneeling in the correct position, quiet and attentive.
"Don't know what kind of manners your last owner had you on, but I want you working, boy, not wasting your time with this kind of crap. Finish up this bathroom." The man leaves the bathroom without waiting for a response.
Greg gets up off his knees and redoubles his efforts, making sure the place is spotless and that he doesn't take too long.
When he leaves the bathroom Mr Smith is waiting outside and he freezes, does he kneel or just go to the next bathroom? He feels so uncertain in his new life, unable to decide what to do, which path is the correct one.
Mr Smith points to the stairs and Greg follows him, being careful to make as little noise as possible.
"You're to take that cleaning kit back to where you got it. What dorm were you assigned to?"
"D..d...d..dorm one, sir," he stammers out.
"After you return your kit, get cleaned up, wash those damn flip-flops off, and get into a clean set of clothing. Fold those clothes and put 'em on the bunk, we're not made of money."
Greg stands still, frozen, wondering what this is all about, is he being sold again already? When Smith yells at him to get going he runs down the stairs, heart beating fast, tense and nervous.
Back in the dorm he puts on his spare set of clothes and kneels anxiously at the bottom of his bunk. Somebody will come for him, and take him to where they want him to be.
He kneels in Doctor Cuddy's office, expressionless, his body holding perfect form. Mrs Foster led him here, at the end of a leash, and then told him to kneel in front of the desk. Now the two women are arguing about him. They are to one side of him so he cannot see them as he stares straight ahead.
Dr Cuddy doesn't like it that he's been shaved bald. She wants to show him to the Board, he doesn't know why, and she doesn't like the way he looks now. He has seen himself in a mirror and he agrees, he looks like an alien creature. Something less than human.
He listens as they discuss his schedule and whether or not he can be trusted with feeding himself and keeping himself clean and exercised. His heart skips a beat when he hears the next thing Dr Cuddy says.
"For the next two weeks, till we get his license reactivated, he'll be setting up the Diagnostics department."
He hears virtually nothing of the rest of the conversation. He hasn't thought about his medical license, and that it would have been deactivated automatically. Now Dr Cuddy is talking about reactivating it, having him set up a department. The idea both excites him and terrifies him. A few months ago he had absolutely no doubts about his medical ability, now he is filled with apprehension. He couldn't save that girl, who'd had appendicitis back in the Center and he was told that he should not even have tried, he wasn't a doctor any more. How can he be a doctor if he is a slave?
Mrs Foster's voice snaps him back to their conversation.
"Greg, you're to be at the exercise field at three sharp, understood?"
He turns his head for the first time to look at her.
"Yes ma'am," he says, before he realizes that he has no idea where that is. He needs to ask.
He swallows nervously, terrified of speaking out of turn.
"Ma'am, permission... to ask..." His voice is rusty from disuse, and he stammers as he stumbles over the question, so unused to talking has he become.
"If you have to ask a question, ask," Mrs Foster says.
"Ma'am, I don't know where the exercise field is, ma'am," he cringes, expecting some consequences for his boldness.
"I'll send one of the slaves on the same exercise schedule to show you the route."
"Thank you ma'am," he says, relieved.
Mrs Foster puts a leash down on the desk and offers some shackles to Dr Cuddy, apparently he is to be left here alone with her. He has another problem, he really needs to go to the bathroom, fairly urgently. If he leaves it any longer he will wet himself again and Mrs Foster won't like that, she might even cane him, like she caned Danny. Mrs Foster said yesterday to ask if he needs to go, but he has just asked a question and he doesn't know if he should ask another one. But if he doesn't say something now he will have to ask Doctor Cuddy when Mrs Foster is gone, and she is already annoyed at him. What if she says no? He realizes that he doesn't have a choice, a few more minutes and he will be wetting himself again, and he reallydoesn't want to do that.
Gathering up his resolve he stumbled over asking permission to ask a question to Mrs Foster, she, at least, is something of a known quantity.
Mrs Foster does seem annoyed at him for wanting to ask anotherquestion, but then smiles and gestures to Doctor Cuddy, telling him he should ask her, as she is his supervisor.
He turn his head and looks at her. He takes a deep breath and gets his question out, waiting anxiously for her response.
"May I have a bathroom break, ma'am?"
Doctor Cuddy just stares at him, disbelief in her eyes. He drops his gaze to the floor, he must have asked incorrectly.
"Good boy."
Mrs Foster pats his head while she praises him for asking. He flushes as he hears her tell Doctor Cuddy how he wet himself yesterday. When he looks up again he sees Doctor Cuddy still staring at him, no doubt wondering how someone who would rather wet himself than ask to go to the bathroom can be a doctor.
As he is led to a bathroom he asks himself the same question.
Mrs Foster leads him on his leash to the nearest bathroom, one that Greg hadn't reached in his cleaning this morning. She briefly instructs him on the proper procedure for a slave to use the bathrooms used by free people. He is not to enter if there are people already inside, he is not to use the urinal, he is to be quick and quiet in his use of the facilities. If he is working with free people he must ask their permission before leaving to use a bathroom. Greg cringes at the thought of having to constantly ask Doctor Cuddy if he is permitted a bathroom break, she had looked disgusted at his asking. And what if she says 'no' – what will he do then?
Mrs Foster sees him back to Doctor Cuddy's office door and then leaves him, with a final order to be good. He enters quietly and kneels in front of her desk.
She looks at him and sighs.
"Get up Greg, follow me."
They make their way down a couple of floors in the elevator. When he drops to his knees at her feet in the elevator she looks at him and hisses at him to 'get up'. Confused, he gets to his feet. He's been taught that he should kneel whenever a free person escorting him stops moving, now Doctor Cuddy is indicating that isn't correct behavior. When they stop on the next floor a patient in a wheelchair, with a relative pushing, and a nurse enter. They all glance at him and Greg is very conscious of the collar around his neck, marking him as a slave. He wonders whether they are staring at him, annoyed that the slave isn't kneeling as he should? He drops his gaze to the ground and hopes to escape further notice.
When Doctor Cuddy steps off the elevator on the second floor he quickly follows, careful not to touch any of the free people in the elevator car as he leaves.
She pauses at a men's room and, without looking at him, instructs him to go whenever he needs, without asking permission.
"Yes, ma'am," he responds, and then, as that doesn't seem adequate for the freedom that she is granting him, he adds quietly, "thank you, ma'am."
The office they go to is a small one, furnished at the moment with only a couple of chairs. Greg can smell a trace of stale cigarette smoke and he swallows down a moment of nausea. The smell brings back memories of his nightmare time in the cage at the Center where he was forced to chain smoke two packets of cigarettes while restrained so he could not move. He drops to his knees and focuses on breathing steadily to calm himself.
His eyes lock onto Doctor Cuddy as she explains that this is to be the diagnostics office and he is to set up a team to take on difficult cases. He will be the property of the department of course, rather than its official head but he will be in charge. She mentions budgets, and fellows, and journals. She talks about how she will be introducing him to department heads, and to the Board of the hospital and he gulps. He can't imagine any department head or Board member being impressed by him, he is every inch a docile slave and he knows it. Now he understands why she was horrified by his lack of hair, being bald will hardly help him create a good first impression.
She keeps pausing and staring at him as she outlines her plans for his future and he responds 'Yes ma'am' and 'No ma'am' at intervals. His thoughts are full of questions about how the new department will function, what type of cases they will take on, who he will have working with him. He can't ask them, he is a slave, it isn't his place to ask questions, except for basic needs, it isn't his place to give his own ideas - he is a slave therefore he shouldn't have any. It ishis place to obey. Doctor Cuddy will tell him what to do and he will do it.
At length she moves on to her plans for the free clinic, he is to work there for four hours a day, seven days a week. He's worked in those sort of clinics before in his previous hospitals and hated every minute spent there. The patients are a string of unmitigated idiots, most of their 'illnesses' are STDs or the common cold. Doctor Cuddy seems enthusiastic though and tells him that as well as diagnosing these patients he will be there to provide 'reassurance'. He swallows hard, remembering that in his last hospital he'd lasted one day in the free clinic, before being banned forever after getting into a fist fight with a patient. He doesn't know how reassuring it will be for the patients to be treated by a slave, or if they will even tolerate it.
Doctor Cuddy seems to be waiting for a response though so he says 'yes ma'am' in a small voice.
Eventually she seems to run out of things to say and just looks at him, disappointment in her expression. She looks at her watch and pulls a notepad and pen out of her briefcase.
"I'll be back in an hour, I want you to outline the function of a Diagnostics department and its usefulness to the hospital. You can use the chairs. Don't leave the room, unless you have to of course."
Left alone he looks around at the office, trying to imagine working here, having people working for him. Having the most difficult cases of the hospital bought to him, being a doctor of last resort. In all his hospitals he's done it informally but now Doctor Cuddy is giving him a department specifically for diagnosis. If it wasn't for the collar around his neck it would be his dream job.
He kneels next to one of the chairs, resting his notepad on its top. The pen feels strange in his fingers, the paper intimidating in its blankness. Tentatively he heads it up - "PPTH Diagnostics Department Form and Function'. Then he takes a deep breath and starts writing.
The words come surprisingly easy, all the ideas and questions he'd had while Doctor Cuddy was talking to him come tumbling out onto the paper. There is no constraint here, no needing to ask for permission to say anything, and the words he thought he'd lost forever are released through the pen.
For just a few brief moments he isn't Greg, the slave, any more, he is a doctor, a professional, outlining his plans for his new department. A smile forms on his face, his first genuine smile since he found himself in a cage in the Center.
Then the door opens.
"Fucking doctors, think they're fucking God and own the fucking place. Where would they be without..."
Greg freezes as a man comes in, swearing loudly. He is followed by a woman, both are dressed in some sort of uniform with PPTH on it.
"Who the fuck are you?" The man catches sight of him kneeling on the floor and stops his tirade against doctors.
Greg puts his hands behind his back, drops his gaze and spreads his legs slightly apart.
"I am called Greg, sir."
"Well get lost Greg, we are having lunch here and we don't want some fucking slave stinking the place up."
Greg stays kneeling, he can't leave, Doctor Cuddy told him not to.
"Well boy, I gave you an order." The man growls, taking a step forward.
"Sir, I can't leave. Doctor Cuddy told me to stay here and not leave the room. I am sorry, sir."
"Doctor Cuddy huh? She's one of the worst. Thinks maintenance is going to drop everything every time she has a loose screw in her desk. Now she's leaving her slaves all over the hospital."
"Oh, leave him alone, Jack, we only have half an hour for lunch, let's not waste it arguing with a slave. The boy can make himself useful anyway. Come here, boy."
The lady is talking to him and he looks up. She is sitting on one of the chairs and is pointing to the ground at her feet.
He hasn't been given permission to rise so he crawls over and then kneels at her feet.
"Now, bend over so your arms are on the ground, you'll make a nice footrest for me."
He hesitates and Jack comes up behind him, slapping him over the head.
"What are you waiting for boy? Sheila gave you an order."
They are both grinning at him and he gulps.
"Sir, I am supposed to be writing, in that book sir, for Doctor Cuddy. She told me...she's coming back in an hour and I'm supposed to..."
Jack picks up the notebook, flipping through it and then throws it and the pen at Greg's feet.
"Well, looks like you're a clever little slave, if you can write and all. So I'm sure you'll have no trouble multitasking Now bend over like she said."
Greg slowly bends down until he is huddled on the floor. Sheila puts her feet up on his back and sits back.
"Yes, that's right boy, just like that."
She starts eating her lunch and Jack sits down in the other chair and puts his drink on Greg's back next to Sheila's feet.
"Well boy, you'd better get on with your writing, don't want to disappoint Doctor Cuddy do you?"
"No, sir."
To Greg's relief they seem to forget about him then, getting on with eating their lunch and complaining about the other staff of the hospital. He can just about manage to write like this but his writing is very untidy and all he could think about are Sheila's feet on his back. For the next half hour he is to be a foot stool, a piece of furniture for two maintenance workers he wouldn't have given the time of day to in his old life.
When they are finished eating they stand up, he is relieved to have Sheila's feet off his back and starts to straighten up.
"Who told you to move, boy?" Jack asks and he immediately curls up again.
"Are you going to be here again, boy?"
"Sir, this is to be an office for a new department, sir. I will be working here, sir." He thinks it would be better not to tell him that it will be hisdepartment, he'd doubt they'd believe him anyway.
"Fuck, we'll have to find some other place to have lunch Sheila. Well boy, you can forget we were here okay? No need to tell Doctor Cuddy that we've been using this place is there?"
"Sir, no sir."
"You'd better not, I'm sure we will be seeing you around the hospital, you fucking slaves are everywhere. If not, well we know where to find you now don't we?"
"Yes, sir." Greg says, hating how his voice is shaking.
Jack laughs and they both leave.
He waits for a minute or two, to be sure they are gone, and then straightens up and crawls to the corner to huddle there and continue with his outline, the words are still coming but he is no longer smiling.
When Doctor Cuddy comes and fetches him he is relieved to see her. On the way back to her office she goes to another room and pours two cups of strong black coffee and gives them to him to carry. The aroma of the coffee is very enticing, he hasn't had any since his enslavement, and he used to drink the stuff all day long.
They return to her office and she sits down and takes one of the coffees from him and flips through his notebook, drinking from the coffee.
He is still holding the other coffee when she speaks again.
"If you don't want the coffee, just put it down."
The coffee is for him. He's fairly sure he's not supposed to have coffee, certainly there is none in the slave canteen, they have water with each meal. Still, she is his supervisor and she has given him permission to drink it.
He gulps at it, surprised at the strong bitter taste and the heat of it. He used to load his coffee with sugar and this has none, it is almost unpleasant to him now. He sips again, it still doesn't taste that great but it is a link to his old life, another small freedom gained back. He is drinking a cup of coffee, just like he used to.
Doctor Cuddy is reading through his notes, looking pleased, and then she frowns.
"What happened here?"
She is showing him the two pages he wrote while being used as a footrest by Sheila. The writing on those pages is messy, disorganized When he looks at it all he can recall is the fear and shame he felt, crouched over on his knees, being used as a piece of furniture by two maintenance workers.
"The rest is fine," she adds, taking the notebook back.
He remembers Jack's words and tells hers only a small version of the truth, the real truth is nothing he wants her to know anyway.
"Some people came in to have lunch, ma'am. They wanted to know what I was doing there." He can hear the shaking of his voice and is disgusted at himself, when did he become so afraid of everything? The answer is that he knows when, the two months he spent in the Slave Center, being taught that he was no longer a person.
"What did you tell them?"
He doesn't answer, just ducks his head and stares at the floor.
"You shouldn't have let them distract you. You were working on something
for me," she tells him sharply.
He wonders how he is supposed to prevent it. Surely she realizes he is a slave and has no power over anyone? Any free person can give him orders.
She gives him the notebook back and tells him to rewrite the messy sections and add some figures from the departmental budget she has worked up. He kneels on the floor, sipping at his coffee and studies the budget figures. Like any employee would he immediately flips to the wages and salaries section to compare wages. He sees the small figure there and realizes his mistake, the only salary noted is for the fellow who will be working for him. It isn't until he is flipping through the assets section that he realizes where he is accounted for, there he is, under fixed assets, right underneath the computer and the office desks and chairs.
He studies the price that the hospital paid for him, it's high, high for a slave he knows, although considerably less than he would have earned in his working life if he'd remained free. If this plan works he knows the hospital has a bargain, if it doesn't work Cuddy will no doubt be called on the carpet for her extravagant purchase. He notices that he is to be depreciated over the standard accounting life of twenty years for fixed assets. It's just a figure for accounting but it gives him pause. He's been a slave for roughly two months, been a slave here for two days - twenty years is an unimaginable length of time for him.
He gets to work, changing his notes and putting the figures in. When he's finished he offers it to Doctor Cuddy who glances through it.
"That's good, my secretary is just down the hall, go and give this to her and ask her to type it up."
He freezes, he doesn't know quite how he is going to do that, he's barely asked two questions since he got here. Doctor Cuddy has gone straight back to work though, and is engrossed in a phone call, so he has no choice.
He finds the secretary, sitting at a desk busily typing away. He comes around in front of her and sinks to his knees, waiting to be noticed. She's been in and out of the office a couple of times since he started working with Doctor Cuddy and now she looks at him impatiently.
"What do you want, boy?"
He offers up the handwritten notes.
"Ma'am, Doctor Cuddy said to give these to you and ask you to type them up, ma'am."
She flips through them and frowns.
"This isn't Doctor Cuddy's handwriting, are these the notes youwere working on?"
"Yes, ma'am. Doctor Cuddy said to give them..."
"I heard you the first time, slave."
"Yes, ma'am."
She frowns again, clearly displeased at being given a slave's notes to type up. He keeps kneeling as she hasn't dismissed him.
"What are you waiting for? Go back to work."
"Yes, ma'am."
He spends the afternoon going through the hours and budget for the free clinic. He realizes he is to be the main workforce, all the other doctors will be working two hours a week at most, he'll be doing 28 hours as well as putting in full days in diagnostics.
After some time he needs to go to the bathroom. He glances up, Doctor Cuddy is busy at her desk with something so he gathers his courage and puts his notes aside, stands up and goes out the door without a word.
It is his first truly independent action since becoming a slave and although he knows it is ridiculous to be pleased by such a small thing he feels a sense of triumph when he comes back and kneels again in her office. She glances down at him and says nothing but there is a small smile on her lips.
When Danny comes in, and she sends him away without releasing Greg for his exercise session, he bites his lip, wondering what Mrs Foster will say, she was quite clear that she wanted him to exercise at three o'clock, now he'll be late.
He can tell Mrs Foster is furious when she comes for him. She takes him outside the office and tethers him to a wall and then goes back into the office. He can't hear what they say but Mrs Foster still looks annoyed when she comes out. She takes him downstairs in an elevator instead of using the stairs and he kneels at her feet while they descend.
"Sorry ma'am, sorry." He offers, hoping to forestall any punishment.
She glances at him and then looks away.
He hangs his head, dejected. In trouble already and it is only his first day.
He is told to strip for exercise and he makes his way out onto the muddy field and is set to running laps by the overseer - a Mr Johnson. He has always loved to run and he runs now, trying to outrun the confusion of the day. He sees Mrs Foster and Mr Johnson talking and laughing together at the edge of the field.
The other slaves all finish their exercise at 4.30 and he is left alone with Mr Johnson. He is directed to pick up the hurdles and other equipment and store them away in the shed, clean up the area and then kneel in the mud waiting for Mr Johnson.
He kneels quietly, covered in sweat and mud, shivering in the cool breeze. He wonders why he is being kept here, when exercise is clearly finished for the day. When Mr Johnson returns he has a leash. He clips the leash onto Greg's collar and leads him back into the inside area where the benches are.
"Now boy, kneel down over the bench."
Greg looks at him with wide eyes but then kneels, chest on the bench, knees on the ground, ass exposed to Mr Johnson. He feels a large hand on his ass, running up and down his flank, petting him. He begins to tremble, as he realizes what is about to happen.
"Now boy, none of that. I'm not going to hurt you," Mr Johnson says quietly, continuing to pet him, as one might try and gentle a wild horse.
"P..p..p...p..please sir, d..d..d.. don't..." Greg stammers out, fear overcoming his reluctance to speak up.
"Shh, quiet now, it's going to be okay. This is nothing to be scared of, this is part of what you are for. Be a good boy now and there will be a treat for you when we're finished."
His shaking knees are pushed wide apart and fingers enter him, preparing him with lube, stretching him. Mr Johnson puts a hand firmly in the middle of his back and presses him down so he can't move. Greg whimpers in distress as Mr Johnson enters him and the overseer makes soothing noises and pats his back until he settles down.
"Quiet, boy, you'll enjoy this, I know you will, you all do. It will be better for you if you relax."
Greg had hoped that this wouldn't happen here, that what had happened in the Center was just part of the dehumanizing process the slaves underwent. He knew that in his old hospital slaves were used sexually by some of the staff, but they had always said the slaves wanted it and enjoyed it.
Greg doesn't want it, and doesn't enjoy it. It happens anyway.
Afterward Mr Johnson has him kneel on the ground by the bench. The overseer tells him to open his mouth and, trembling, Greg does so. A square of chocolate is placed on his tongue.
"You eat that boy, you were very good. You're a very good boy." He reaches out and strokes Greg's bald head as he eats his chocolate. Greg always used to like chocolates, back when he was free, sometimes he'd scoff a whole box in one sitting. In the Center he had tried his hardest to win one of the chocolates the trainers handed out, although he never did. This one tastes like ash in his mouth. The price is too high.
When Greg lies in his bunk that night he draws the blanket around him, covering his nakedness up as much as possible. He is confused and uncertain. The day has been both a promise of better things to come and a harsh introduction to his life as a non-person.
Doctor Cuddy has outlined a future for him that sounds, if not everything he had wanted for his life, at least tolerable. He would be working as a Doctor, in a challenging position, he could earn some respect. Then Mr Johnson used him and showed him what he really was, all he could ever be now. Any control he thought he had over his life now would only ever be an illusion. At any point people could use him for whatever they wanted, for furniture or to fuck, there would be a string of Sheilas, Jacks, and Mr Johnson's, all using him for their own ends.
In the dim room he hears Danny crying. His own tears, when they come, are silent.
