In the company of the burning fire, the beautiful scent of the man’s smoldering flesh and the quiet love of her family, Gold felt the only thing she ever wanted. She felt perfect.
The oak’s silent song turned into a loud beat and soon the women jumped to their feet. They undressed themselves, exposing their bodies to the elements, and started dancing around the fire.
As the time passed their dance got wilder, until their movements became so uncontrollable that they clashed into each other. When the women felt each other’s skin the dance turned into a violent game of lovemaking and sexual pleasure.
It was Gold that sat at the center of their orgy. Caressed, kissed, squeezed, and bitten by her sisters and mother alike. Her gorgeous body drew them toward her like moths to a flame and in their shared lust they reached orgasm after orgasm. Their heavy panting, moaning and, eventually, screaming, filled the field’s oppressive atmosphere.
Piled up together in a heap of warm and lustful flesh, they passed out.
Hours passed before Gold opened her eyes again. The sun was not yet rising but its first rays would be upon them very soon.
She untangled herself from Red’s arm draped around her neck and crawled to her feet. She looked back to find her sisters still caught in their peaceful slumber, but where was her mother?
Gold turned and scanned the field until she found her mother at the edge. She stood in front of a naked man Gold didn’t know. He was unspeakably beautiful, with his exquisite pale skin and flowing dark hair.
She watched as her mother pressed herself against the stranger’s chest. Listened carefully as her mother’s voice echoed quietly along the field. “You are finally here? Is it finally time?”
The stranger did not answer her in words, but in deeds. He took her head and tore it from her neck, watching as the fountain of blood spouting from her body drenched the grass.
Gold knew that she should be afraid, or angry, or both, but felt nothing as the stranger crushed her mother’s skull with his pale, powerful hands. Folded it up until it was small enough to fit in his mouth. With three strong bites he consumed her.
The stranger stepped onto the field and toward the oak where Black and Red lay ignorant of the events that were unfolding.
Gold simply watched as the stranger repeated his gruesome act with her sisters. Tearing their skulls clean off, enjoying the spectacle of blood, only to stuff his mouth with their precious, powerful heads.
Then he turned to her and Gold was struck again by his absolute beauty. She was nothing next to him. Gold felt like an ugly, incompetent child that would never be good enough. Would never surpass what she instinctively felt was her father.
He walked toward her and placed his warm hands on her shoulders. Their eyes locked and then she heard his voice whisper inside her head.
“You have done me very proud. The blood you shed. It is truly beautiful.”
Tears welled up in Gold’s eyes as she heard her father’s words of approval. She was good, she was beautiful!
“May I now consume you, my perfect child? Will you offer to me your flesh, and your bones, and your blood?”
The naked Gold knelt in front of her father and gently put his hands underneath her chin. She thought that it was there that he could most easily pull off her head.
She closed her eyes but felt no fear. Gold knew that this was the design of the beautiful oak. This was what had to happen. It was fate and she was going home now.
(The life of a slave wasn’t marked by time, but by utility)
Meriday didn’t exactly know how old he was. He had been torn from his mother’s arms by the scary white men when he was just a boy and life had been unkind ever since.
In his dreams he could sometimes remember the ship that took him from his home to a strange new world in which he was less than a person. The water that rocked him during his sleep had forced him to wet his bed until he became a young man.
Fear was what had fueled his earliest years and the burn of his unfortunate destiny never abandoned him.
When Meriday first got to the plantation he had hidden behind one of the Master’s wagons, hiding his terrified eyes behind his small, pointy knees.
When the Master had found him he yanked him by the arm and forced his red, bearded face very close to Meriday’s.
“Your freedom was an illusion!”
“You are my tool! My property!”
“And if you work you will survive!”
“And if you don’t, I will feed you to my dogs!”
Meriday hadn’t understood a word the old man said, but the eager howl of the big black dogs the man pointed to had given him a general impression. His life was no longer his own and, over time, Meriday could no longer believe it ever had been to begin with.
Days on the plantation were long and hard. There lingered always the sour mixture of blood and sweat in Meriday’s nose. Blood. Always blood, because there was always somebody that didn’t work hard enough… and there was always the Master’s eager whip ready to tear the flesh from their backs. Their open wounds would burn from the sweat and the brutal sun.
The nights were much shorter and what little sleep Meriday got was always filled with memories he wasn’t sure belonged to him. In time it felt as if he no longer was an individual, but rather a small and replaceable cog within the grand machine. It was the Master that pulled the machine’s lever, whenever he pleased, and pushed the buttons that served him best.
If he worked, Meriday would survive.
And if he didn’t, he would be fed to the dogs.
The big black dogs that were always on a short chain, barking and growling at Meriday as if they resented him for hanging on. For not giving up. For not becoming their next meal.
If Meriday had known how to give up, he would have.
Even though Meriday didn’t know how old he was, he could see his body change over time. His arms grew bigger, his chest wider, and his working shoulders could carry more and more weight. The instrument in his pants, the one he used to pee, grew too, though Meriday didn’t really understand the purpose of its size. It wasn’t as if he could pee more now, and why would he want to? The more time he spent peeing, the less time he had to work. The closer the growling dogs seemed to get.
Meriday had little understanding of right and wrong. He understood perfectly, however, the state of pain and how best to avoid the Master’s whip. It didn’t have anything to do with working the hardest or being the last to leave the field. No, if you wanted to avoid the whip, you made sure you stayed out of sight. Meriday learned the Master’s blind angles and tried to work around him.
There were still beatings, of course. But you couldn’t avoid those. They would happen at random hours, sometimes in the middle of the night, when the Master had too much to drink and his breath reeked of a deep and dark poison.
Meriday preferred these beatings because they were always with fist and boot instead of the horrible whip. They wouldn’t rip the skin off his back and cause festering wounds. The bruises he could take, the swollen eyes he learned to see through, and if he breathed just right a cracked rib would heal much faster.
Even throughout all the violence and abuse there were small rays of kindness that graced Meriday’s life. They came in the shape of the young girl that lived at the farm and called the Master her father. She would sometimes bring Meriday extra water, or a piece of bread that she hadn’t finished. Whenever Meriday’s beating had been especially brutal she would come to him during the nights and tend to his injuries.
It was she that kissed him during one of those nights and it was then that Meriday first understood the use of the instrument in his pants. He didn’t know how it worked, exactly, but the girl had a clue. She helped him inside of her and they clumsily grinded each other to an explosive sensation of warmth and relief. Afterward the girl whispered words of love to him, but Meriday wasn’t sure what they meant. Love had never been an aspect of his reality.