Warning: This is a story in which Greg House gets turned into a slave: depersonalization, dehumanization, humiliation, confinement, and other horrors. Really: don't like, don't read. This story is about commercial slavery and the process of turning a free person into a slave.

Stage 4: Processing

4.1 Cleansing

Sam signed in for her shift in Processing five minutes late: her car broke down and it always takes a while to get a cab driver willing to go out to the Center. Her boyfriend will pick her up at the end of the shift and tow her car. They both work shifts and rarely manage this kind of spontaneous meet-up, so even though she's not looking forward to the bill for the car repairs, this feels like a treat, to know she'll see him at the end of the day.

A shift in Processing begins with a thorough scrub and change into the Center uniform. Then there's half an hour's briefing and synchronization. With practice, Sam can do the scrub in less than twenty-five minutes, and she has to, because it would be unacceptable to be late for the briefing.

There are forty-one slaves in Processing right now, spread across one hundred crates. That's an average number - there are always empty crates, and need to be, because each of them must be taken out of the crate at least twice in every six hour shift, for exercise, for elimination/cleansing, for measuring, and about every 70 hours to be taken to grooming. After having been taken out, they must be put back into a different crate. They are fed about every 8 hours, and given half a pint of water every 4 hours precisely. They can't be allowed to develop any sense of routine, so their assignments have to be carefully worked out - nothing more difficult to create, Sam's boss said once, than the appearance of randomness.

She's been assigned 12 slaves for her shift, but four of them are just food or water assignments, they don't count: and now she's done her first three months in Processing, she's being assigned slaves from the Admissions end of the room, not just the Education end.

Slaves are objects to be used. Free people who have been enslaved for debt or sold themselves have become objects, and need to have that ground into them. It usually takes 24 to 26 shifts, about 140 to 160 hours in Processing for a slave to be ready for Education.

The list of assignments started with an exercise session, then an elimination/cleansing break, then two measuring sessions in a row, then her lunch. After lunch, exercise, a trip to Grooming, another measuring session, and an elimination/cleansing break at the end of the day. Could be worse: Sam hated having to do elimination sessions just before lunch, and she hadn't been assigned to collect any slaves from Admission this shift. She synchronized her watch, set the silent alarms for the start of each session and for the two water assignments, and with the other staff starting their shift, went into the Processing room.

There's always some noise from the Admissions end. Last shift a particularly noisy slave was brought in - literally the only time he quieted down was when he was gagged for force-feeding. The first thing Sam heard was an irregular rattling kicking noise, accompanied by hoarse cursing. She looked at Robby and raised her eyebrows: "Sounds like the same guy," she said quietly.

The first exercise session was with a young woman who was already at the mid-point of the room - stunned acceptance rather than eager submission, she was easy to handle rather than compliant. She wasn't particularly fit: after Sam and the other three had locked her to the exercise machine, she cried and panted and once protested, as Sam turned the speed up again, "No..." but the four of them put her back in a crate a little bit further up the room: only the one word had escaped her, she'd been silent after that.

It's strictly against the rules to talk to a slave in Processing as if they were able to understand, and a disciplinary offense to respond to any questions the slave asks. Most slaves just quit talking after a few shifts, even though they're never punished for making a noise.

The noisy slave, still right down at Admissions end about 20 hours after he'd been brought in, rattled the cage door and shouted at them when they approached. Handling a slave at this stage took teamwork: Sam unlatched the door, Man and Robby grabbed his wrists and locked them together, they hauled him out and Sam and Sarah got his ankles into the long shackles. Haul him to his feet - he was tall - and clip two leashes to his collar. Sam took one, Robby took the other, Man and Sarah grabbed his elbows, and they walked him over to the squat toilet. He fell silent briefly as they walked him, as if he was out of breath.

They were fed slave chow - amounts based on the slave's weight and fitness, nutritious pellets with plenty of fibre and all the necessary vitamins and minerals. Their water intake was regulated. It was possible to predict a bowel movement to within minutes, providing the slave had a healthy bowel and wasn't resisting with hysterically tightened sphincters.

The slave's records showed that so far, he'd needed two enemas - he'd only once managed to go at the squat, within the required five minutes. Sam and Robby hooked his collar up to the overhead pole with the leashes, to keep his head up, and Robby and Sarah got his ankles fastened to the ringbolts, the right distance apart to bring him into a squat. He cursed them, seemingly getting his breath back. Sam found she had to keep reminding herself that he was just chattel, no more sense getting mad at what he was saying than getting mad at a chair when she barked her shin on it. Unfasten his wrist cuffs, haul his arms out to the sides, fasten them to the side poles: he was held in the right position. Sarah went to get an enema kit, and the other three stood and watched.

"I don't need an audience," the slave said. He was grinning, showing all of his teeth, but his voice was shaking. He tried to shake his head and the leashes rattled. When he started singing, his voice got a bit stronger. "Lick my ass nicely, lick it nice and clean, nice and clean, lick my ass..." His voice trailed off. He swallowed. "Can't you put up a screen, you sick fuckers? Do you get off on this?" He was ready to give in, Sam judged: his voice was hoarse and tired. "You can't treat people like this, this isn't right..." He tugged on the arm bonds, but he was held securely. "It's no good, I can't do this, I can't..."

His voice trailed off. He was staring past them. His mouth went open. They knew by the smell before they saw that they weren't going to need the enema kit. And he pissed himself too, without needing any extra help.

They hosed him down, front and back, and reshackled him to walk him back to the crate. He was remarkably quiet for all that time, and they put him into a crate a bit further up the line. But almost as soon as they walked away - Sam's first water assignment was due in five - he started kicking at his crate again, loud rattling thumps, that didn't let up: when Sam went for lunch he was still at it.

She noticed when the noisy slave was taken out of the crate again for a measuring session in the second half of her shift, he followed the same pattern - screaming curses, silenced this time only when they were measuring his mouth for gags, and then when he was returned to his crate - back down the line again, Sam saw - he shook and kicked at it.

Sam didn't talk about Measuring to her boyfriend. He might have got the wrong idea. Measuring included a regular check of the slave's weight and muscle tone. But it also checked the slave's internal measurements and reactions to being used with dildos, butt plugs, speculums, and gags: how wide could a slave's anus be stretched? How thick - and how long - a dildo could a slave take? What was the largest gag a slave could safely be used with? Could a slave be forced to orgasm? Sam didn't get off on it - she knew some of the staff came back in offduty hours to make use of slaves who were particularly responsive, but she couldn't see the hairless, manipulated bodies as attractive at all - but it could easily be misunderstood, so she just didn't talk about it.

Her boyfriend picked her up at the Center's gates just after shift-end. After they'd dealt with her car, they went back to his place for pizza and a movie.

*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*

4.2 Management

Most free people who were enslaved for debt or sold themselves had no real idea what it meant to be a slave. Admissions was an important initial lesson. Processing was where their chattel status was ground into them.

Processing was the most labor-intensive section of the Center, staffed continuously, 24 hours a day, four shifts overlapping with each other, ensuring that the slaves held in the crates and in the continuous artificial light, had no awareness of the passing of time. It was usual for a slave to take six or seven days to move from initial rebellion to stunned acceptance to active cooperation. A slave wasn't ready for Education until they were cooperative, eager to please their handlers, and always silent unless told to speak. Sometimes a slave had to be returned to Processing from Education for a few days. For bookkeeping purposes, thirty days is the maximum time a slave can be held in Processing.

The Processing manager holds a weekly meeting of all the heads of shift, normally just a quick catchup of what everyone's been doing: last week three heads of shift mentioned an unusually noisy, active slave, just two days in from Admissions. This week, disturbed by virtually every report, the manager has decided to allot half an hour specifically to discuss what they can do with a slave who hasn't been progressing up the line from Admissions at all.

"To summarise," the manager said briefly, "This slave fights the shackles, he kicks and hits the inside of his crate, and he shouts, curses, or occasionally sings, pretty much continuously whenever his mouth is unplugged, unless he's asleep. And we can only get him to sleep by exercising him to exhaustion starting an hour after he's fed. Does he have any good points at all?"

By policy, no one who handles the slaves in Processing directly should know anything in detail about the slave's value or background. The manager is aware that this slave has considerable potential value: he was a doctor before he was enslaved, a well-qualified one. Smart and dumb slaves have come through Processing in the manager's time here, people with professional training and homeless walk-ins looking to get owned for a warm place to sleep, and none of them have caused as much trouble as this one. This one is taller than average - his head and his feet will always touch the ends of the crate, unless he curls up - but height alone doesn't explain the persistent, futile rebellion.

"He's extremely sexually responsive," three shift heads said almost simultaneously, and glanced at each other.

"He's quite a good singer," another shift head said. She spread her hands on the table, reacting to the looks she was getting. "I'm not being funny, sir, it's one of his points: he's got a nice body, he can be pretty consistently forced to orgasm, he can sing."

"But he's completely unsellable," another shift head said. "Furthermore, he's causing disruption in Processing as long as he's there."

"We're looking at his good points," the manager reminded them. "Is there any part of his processing he doesn't fight? For example, I think he's only needed to be force-fed once?"

"Yes, he eats, and he's never refused water."

"We had to give him five enemas, in total, I think," another shift head said. The manager nodded. "But that was in the first few days. For the past four or five days, he's learned to go on the squat."

"And it makes him shut up," another shift head said. "Temporarily, anyway."

"Really?" The manager was interested. "What else makes him shut up?"

"Orgasm," everyone said.

"He sometimes cries afterwards, but he doesn't talk," a shift head clarified.

"Humiliation?" the manager suggested. "Is that the key?"

"I don't think so," the shift head who'd commented on the slave's singing said, thoughtfully. "I'm not sure he's humiliated by what we do to him any more."

"What makes you think that?"

"He stopped singing," she said. "And he's not cursing coherently any more. He doesn't seem to be thinking about fighting us, he just is. I think it's loss of control. If we could somehow permanently make him feel as out of control as he does then, I think he'd shut up."

The meeting went on, but afterwards the manager thought; that was the smartest thing anyone said at it.

*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*

4.3 Control

Margrethe announced the plan for silencing the noisy slave at the start of the shift. The assignments for the shift had already been made: he was due to be removed from his crate once for exercise and once for measurement. He would be fed an hour from the end of the shift.

"Hope this works," someone said, rather pessimistically, from the back.

The reports on this slave said repeatedly: he watches. He pays attention. He's hard to surprise. He's always alert, unless you exercise him to exhaustion. He's sexually responsive unless he's hurt - if he's in pain he won't react, and he actively tries to get hurt rather than have to respond. Whipping a slave like this - an option at this stage - would be counterproductive. He's potentially very valuable, if he can be processed.

"Me too," Margrethe agreed. "Remember, though: he shouldn't experience this as punishment. You're to do nothing to surprise him or frighten him after we fix the ear pads. Just go through your usual routine."

She watched as a team of four removed him from his crate. He started to bellow incoherently at them: just as she'd described to the manager, he was no longer trying to make words. He was just shouting. As planned, after he had been fastened to a table, the gel buds were fitted into his ears, and pads taped over them and taped down, Margrethe had tried it herself, and found that it cut out all sound: she was left with the pulse of her blood in her head. They were using tape that would take surgical spirit to remove. Margrethe pointed to his hands: "Trim his nails back to the quick. I'll send a note to Grooming to make sure they keep him trimmed."

The team unfastened him from the table and helped him off it, then led him over to the exercise machine. The slave wasn't shouting any more. He was staring around, his eyes flickering from point to point. He was fastened up to the machine, still in silence, and once the machine had started, Margrethe went over to nod approval and say, quietly for the sake of the other slaves, "Good job."

"It worked," one of the team said.

"For now, anyway," Margrethe warned them. "But it's a start."

As she'd feared, though he remained silent - and was seen to be fumbling at the pads with his fingers - the slave banged and kicked at his crate when he was put into it.

The next day, on someone else's shift, his eyes were sealed shut and pads were put over his eyes and taped down. When Margrethe's shift started, she saw with relief that the combination of being both blind and deaf had silenced him completely. The slave nicknamed "Noisy" was lying still and quiet in the crate. He was taken out to be fed and watered now, as he couldn't see to feed himself: Margrethe watched approvingly as a handler tapped him gently on the jaw to get him to open his mouth, and spooned a mouthful of pellets inside.

At first he only cooperated when he was both blind and deaf: when they took the pads off either eyes or ears, he shouted again, he kicked the crate. But his energy for fighting them seemed diminished.

When Margrethe had the eyepads put back on and the slave screamed, it seemed to be involuntary: he still tried to cooperate when the handlers guided him gently back to the crate. She had the earbuds put in again and he stopped screaming. Once when Margrethe was standing next to the slave when he was being hosed down, she heard him say, in a very small and disconnected voice, "Want to come in now," but she never heard him say a word after that.

His progress is still slow: when he's blind and deaf the staff are instructed to treat him gently, never rough, using plenty of lube when he's fucked, taking it slow and easy when he's measured, handfeeding him his ration of slave chow at an easy rate, even letting him take his time at the squat toilet.

Eighteen days after the slave had entered processing, nine days after they had begun the process of sensory deprivation, Margrethe had his eyes and ears unsealed.

Over the next thirty-six hours, according to a special schedule, they would have him groomed, measured, cleansed, used by staff (there were several volunteers), and exercised. Then he would be left in the crate by himself for eight hours, without either food or water. Neither she nor any of the handlers on her shifts had heard him make a voluntary sound in days, he cooperated with the handlers, he was quiet when resting in the crate. Forty-eight hours of such good behavior, able to hear and see, and they'd be done with him.

Margrethe was genuinely optimistic about his chances: he seemed to be really ready for Education.

*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*

Tailkinker's parallel story of Seven Stages will be updated in a few hours giving Greg's POV on Processing. The next Stage, "Education", will be published tomorrow. According to our inspired and inspiring beta-reader Illumin, it's even worse than "Processing"... but if you've enjoyed so far, please review!

((Pointless Trivia: "Leck mich im Arsch" is a drinking song written by Mozart, that went unpublished for two centuries after his death. House is singing an English translation to be found in Wikipedia.))