 |
| You're next! |
Securely locked in the holding-pen immediately below the selling platform and auction-block, this new slave listens apprehensively as another wretched slave is sold. He hears the frenzied shouting of the buyers as they outbid one another and the realisation that he is soon to take his place on the auction-block causes him to tremble.
The auctioneer's helpers have prepared him by coating his impressive body with a high-sheen slave oil. This is done so that his physique is better displayed as he flexes and poses on the auction-block for the buyers' visual appraisal.
Soon the overseers will return and fit chains to his ankles an wrists and fasten a collar and leash around his neck. Then, he will be led up the steps to the platform and made to stand on the block.
The slave's natural instinct will be to baulk as he is led up the stairs. He will pull back on his leash in a futile attempt to delay the inevitable. However, a few cuts of the overseer's quirt will convince him to co-operate.
Once on the auction-block, he will be ordered to primp and preen to better display his naked body. As he does so, the bright sunlight will be reflected in the oil coating his body thus highlighting the workings of his muscles.
The purists among the buyers will disapprove of the stark whiteness of his buttocks. They will frown at the midriff break between the tan of the slave's upper body and his legs. However, they will allow for the fact that until a few days ago, the slave was a free man and he would never have walked around buck-assed naked. No free man does!
Anyway, after a few weeks working completely naked in the open, the colour of his ass will match the rest of the slave's hide.
And there could be an "upside" to this. Without realising it, the buyers' eyes will be drawn to the porcelain whiteness of the slave's ass and their focus will be centred on the pertness of his ass-cheeks and the cleft that divides them. The buyers' lustful imaginations will go into overdrive as they gaze upon the ass-crack and wonder about the erotic pleasures hidden within its depth.
This slave should sell well!
Picture sourced from the internet: the text is mine.
Here is an example of how, in the mind of a great writer like Jean-Christophe, a simple psychological observation can become a page of great prose, filled with poetical intensity.
ReplyDeleteIn this mastery description of a slave-auction, I’d like to focus especially on the initial anxiety and desperation of the slave, who’s waiting for being dragged onto the auction-platform and being sold to the highest bidder ……. anxiety and desperation just caused by the sounds of the ongoing auction of another slave, that he’s can’t help but hearing, while still locked in the holding pen.
Certainly he hears not only He hears the frenzied shouting of the buyers as they outbid one another, and their frantic almost rabid yells for placing higher and higher bids ……. with an increasing terror, desperation and loathing overwhelming his mind, he hears also the obscene comments that buyers yell about his slave-mate who’s presently auctioned …… their indecent requests to the auctioneer for showing more of this or that detail of the slave’s physique …… He hears on the platform the noise of their footsteps, while some of them climb the platform to inspect with their own hands the details of the slave’s body ……… and, if the still untamed auctioned slave tries to rebel and escape those ignominious, obscene examinations, he hears the rabid cries of the merchant and of the overseers, and the whistling of whips and canes and the dull moans of agony of the beaten slave ……
Oh, indeed how much terror and anxiety must have caused into the mind of the slaves ready to be sold, the sounds of the sale of other preceding slaves !
Karel
Just a quick additional historical note: the scene imagined here by Jean-Christophe with the slave waiting for his sale, locked in a cell under the auction platform, is historically correct.
ReplyDeleteFor example in ancient Rome, before a great auction with “valuable merchandise”, the slaves that were destined to be sold in that auction were displayed to their prospective buyers in the three or four days preceding the auction, so that each buyer could appraise the “quality” of the merchandise and choose the slaves of interest, for which each buyer would have bid.
During this “show of goods on sale” the slaves could be displayed or locked into cages, lined up in the rooms of the store or in the store’s yard; or alternatively they were exposed tied /chained to the walls and columns of the store itself.
During the auction, the slaves that were still to be auctioned were generally locked into cages of cells inside the store.
However in some cases – like Jean Christophe has imagined here- they were locked inside low cages ……. made of iron bars, of wood or even of net …… positioned under the auction platform itself.
Some slave-dealers preferred this latest situation, because in this way, even during the ongoing auction, the buyers could continue to see and appraise the slaves still to be sold.
Karel