Lance Kyle

Seaward Plantation

Chapters 5-7

Chapter five

Mark Appleby and his black slave, Troy, lay in a comfortable tangle of limbs. Deep chocolate brown and lighter tanned white and pink arms, legs, and flesh made a pleasing contrast in the gathering light. A bottle of Napoleon brandy, one fourth gone, sat on a bedside table, while two empty snifters had rolled from the covers onto the braided rug and under the four-poster bed in the night.

The twenty-five year old master and his twenty year old slave awoke slowly with small movements of stretching, yawns, and sighs. Rising into consciousness, each remembered where he was and the passionate embraces of the night before, discovered with pleasure that his partner was still close by, that their arms and legs were still wrapped around each other. Blinking awake, lying side by side facing each other, they looked into each other's eyes in silence for a moment.

"Morning, Master Mark," said the male slave, his dark face breaking into a grin showing perfect white teeth.

"Morning, Slave Troy," returned his master, and both men broke into soft laughter, both conscious of the absurdity of their unequal legal status in contrast to the intimate relationship formed last night. Snuggling closer, they rubbed noses, brushed lips, touched foreheads together. Appleby lifted his head and moved even closer to lay his cheek on top of the smooth, dark chocolate cheek of his slave. Holding each other peacefully, each felt the inevitable rise in his own penis and in the organ of his lover. One swelling encouraged another, and soon two rigid cocks stretched against each other between the two men, pointing straight up in a line between them. Moaning with soft pleasure, Appleby shifted his arms to go around the neck and back of the black man, pulling the two closer together, while Troy slowly pumped both cocks together, his big brown hand encircling both.

The pleasurable moment did not last. Raising his head to listen, Appleby thought he heard a sound from downstairs, in what he thought was an otherwise empty house. Now sure that he heard a soft human voice, he started up. "Wha'?" asked Troy, disappointed, looking searchingly into his master's medium brown eyes.

"Someone is downstairs," said Appleby. "Wait here, I'll go see."

The room temperature was pleasant as Appleby sprang from bed. In the increasing light he found his trousers and drew them quickly on, leaving his underwear and shirt on the floor where they had been fallen in haste the night before. He padded down the hallway and stood at the top of the stairs, listening. Now he could distinctly hear soft, careful footsteps, and a low masculine voice calling "Troy? Troy!" outside the library at the other end of the downstairs hallway. Soundlessly, Appleby walked down the stairs and turned down the hall. In the darker hallway, he could just make out Hector, the fourteen year old brother of Troy, who was standing in the hallway and peering into the library, calling his brother.

"Hector!" Appleby said, softly so as not to startle the boy. Nevertheless, the dark brown boy jumped and turned, gasping.

"Master Mark! you scared me," he exclaimed. "I was… this morning… uh, do you know where Troy is, Master Mark? He said he was going to sleep in the barn, but he wasn't there this morning. I've looked everywhere." A look of real concern crossed his handsome young face.

"Oh, he's here, he spent the night upstairs in one of the bedrooms," replied Appleby, walking up the hallway. "He's fine." Hector's relief at this good news warred with astonishment that even as open and accepting a white man as Master Mark would put a slave up in a spare bedroom.

Appleby came close to the boy and put a comforting hand on his shoulder. "He's alright, really," he said, giving the young slave a gentle squeeze on the shoulder. Hector was momentarily lost in the sight of his master's bare torso, looking medium tan and dusky in the dark hallway. Memories of yesterday's sweet coupling flooded back. Appleby pulled the boy to him, who turned to press the soft black skin of his cheek against the man's chest. They hugged affectionately, then Appleby planted a quick kiss on top of the boy's kinky head and, lifting his face, on his full lips.

"Do you want to come up and see him?" he asked. Hector nodded agreement quickly, and so the two walked upstairs, Appleby with his arm draped lightly over the boy's shoulders. Reaching the top of the stairs, Appleby gestured to the open door on the left. "That's my room," he said.

His interest piqued, Hector stepped just inside the door. "Oh!" he said in surprise, looking around. "Your bed is… it's so, uh, neat," he said, his dark skin turning darker as he blushed. Appleby suddenly realized how incongruous was the neat appearance of his own room and his just-got-up appearance. There was nothing to do but show the boy to his brother's bedroom, however, since they had come this far.

"Troy is over here," Appleby said, crossing the hall. Hector walked into the bedroom. His brother, who had been dozing, started up, half-sitting in bed, supporting himself on one hand, the sheets just covering his naked groin. "Oh… hey, Hector, is anything wrong?"

"No, nothing wrong, I went to tell you that Athena and the child had a restful night but couldn't find you in the barn so I……" the boy's voice trailed off as he looked around the room at the rumbled bed, the liquor bottle and empty glasses…. and at his master's shirt and underwear cast carelessly on the floor. He stared at them for a moment, then at his master, and said, "Master Mark, isn't that your shirt and…" then stopped short, realizing what he was implying… indeed, realizing what the plain truth must be.

"Yes, Hector, those are mine," said Appleby, coming up beside the boy and putting his arm around him, hugging him affectionately. The boy stared open-mouthed at his master, at his brother in the bed, at the piled clothes. Sensing his younger brother's confusion, Troy threw back the sheets and uncoiled himself from the bed, the powerful muscles of his sleek, dark body moving with a fluid power. He took two steps and put his arm around the boy on the other side from his master. "Are you alright, Hector? Are you alright with… with this?" he asked his brother.

Hector thought for a moment, then shook his head 'yes' vigorously and rested his head against his master's chest. "Yes," he whispered through half-parted lips. "Yes, yes, yes." His naked older brother pulled in closer, putting his other arm around the bare shoulders of his master, making a tight circle. Hector looked from the naked body of his brother to the half naked body of his master and grinned. Reaching over quickly, he tugged on the waist of his master's trousers, which dropped to the floor. He raised his head from his master's chest to smile into the white man's face, then to grin at his brother. Breaking away from the two men, Hector took a step back and wriggled out of first his shirt and then his pants, dropping them to the floor. He kicked away the rough shoes he wore, and then in one gesture undid his thin loincloth and cast it aside. His inky dark penis sprang out, already fully erect, and now standing stiff out in front of him.

Hector pushed back into a tight circular embrace with his brother and his white master. Three erect cocks met in the circle: Troy's huge organ, ten inches [25 cm] long at rest, had grown by two inches [5 cm] and had swollen in thickness. The reddish brown head of his dick pushed out now beyond its purple black hood of skin. Hector's eight inch [20 cm] dick was a slightly smaller copy of his brother's except it curved down a little at the end when fully erect. Mark Appleby felt no embarrasment at his own seven inches [18 cm], now grown in a rigid erection. The two men and boy delighted in bouncing slightly on the balls of their feet to make their penises slap and slide with one another. Bright, glistening threads of precum hung from cock to cock and dribbled down to the floor.

Pulling each other in tight, arms clutched the slippery muscles of sweaty shoulder blades, hands dug into ass cheeks and cupped whole buttocks, caressed the taught abdominal muscles above the hips. Appleby was beside himself. As he turned to kiss and bite one nearly black earlobe he felt thick, moist lips on the other side of him take the skin of his neck into a gentle bite. As he turned to that side to suck whole, fruity lips into his mouth he felt his nipple on the other side being bitten by a slave whose jet-black, solid cap of kinky hair brushed his neck and chin.

Appleby slid to his knees, his arms holding tight to the muscled ridge of a dark chocolate hip on either side of him. A few seconds of bobbing after the waving shafts in front of him, and some helpful maneuvering by his slaves, put both of the black hoses in his mouth. They would not go in far together, but he could suck the heads into his mouth, mashing them together in the warm cavity, running his tongue over the sensitive top of each glans which made the blacks moan and buckle their knees in pleasure. Appleby rose and returned his own organ to the mix, swallowing precum. Troy saw what he must do and dropped to his own knees, taking his master's now deep purple, dusky penis and his brother's ebony shaft into his mouth and performing the same service. Then he stood and Hector gamely fell to his knees, capturing his brother's monstrous black penis and his master's rigid cock in his mouth and sucking.

As soon as Hector rose, swallowing precum, a thin line of clear drool running down his chin, Troy turned his head to survey the room quickly, then looked at his master and smiling said, "Soap." "Soap?" asked Hector, puzzled. "Soap!" explaimed Appleby, catching the inspiration.

Troy sprang into action, breaking away from the group and dunking last night's bar of soap into the nearby basin of cloudy water. Hector, pulling himself tight to his master's side, saw what he intended to do, and a powerful look of naked desire came into his eyes. The soap well softened, Troy thought for a moment, and then made a decision to do something, to accept something, he had never accepted before. He knelt before his white master and began lathering the rigid red cock of the white man. Appleby closed his eyes in ecstatic anticipation and began caressing the crisp, kinky hair of his black slave. Troy beckoned his brother to him and soaped up the boy's penis as well, Hector pushing his organ back and forth slightly in his brother's slippery grasp. Troy reached back behind himself, in between his thickly muscled buttocks, and lubricated his brown, wrinkled asshole, sliding his finger inside to loosen it. He looked up at the white man and black boy with an inquiring look. Understanding what was being asked, Appleby turned around and bent over, exposing his own pink, puckered hole, which Troy also lubricated, pushing a finger inside.

Wordlessly, his preparations finished, Troy climbed onto the bed and knelt in the middle of it, sticking his hard, prominent buttocks in the air, elbows on the sheets, head down and resting against the wooden headboard. Appleby was right behind him. He positioned the head of his slippery cock at Troy's hole and gently pushed. A moment of resistance caused Troy, utterly unused to the experience, to cry out. Then with a pop the white man was in. Troy gasped and caught his breath as the long, white penis slowly moved all the way in until the master's fluffy brown pubic hair was mashed against his bottom. Appleby leaned over his slave and put his hands on the black man's shoulders, then looked at Hector and nodded. Mouth slack with anticipation, Hector climbed onto the bed behind his master. He placed the reddish brown head of his organ at his master's rectal opening and pushed. Loosened by last night's coitus with Troy's huge black cock, the white man's hole opened easily. Hector was all the way in before he knew it, scrambling to push himself forward on his knees as his master gasped.

The white man set the pace for his two chocolate dark slaves. As he pumped forward, Hector pulled back until only the head of his cock remained inside his master. When Appleby pulled back most of the way out of Troy, Hector slammed forward all the way to his nest of black pubic hair. Reaching around the black slave in front of him, Appleby grasped the huge black sausage with one hand while with the other he kept his balance by clutching the slave's muscular shoulders. Appleby pumped Troy's penis in time to the rhythm that he set. The bed nearly bounced with the rhythmic pounding of the two men and boy.

Hector was the first to come. "Ah, no! Ah master! Oh, sweet, Oh, la! Ah, help me, yes, yes yes!" he shouted incoherently, repeating meaingless phrases as his whole body arched, pulling his master's hips back into his exploding groin, pumping and pausing, pumping and pausing, until the waves of the orgasm passed. He slumped over his master's back, holding on by clasping him around the belly, unwilling to let go, gasping for air. Despite Hector's spasms, Appleby never let go of Troy's huge penis, however, and pumped it rhythmically, squeezing it hard with his right hand. Troy's oak-hard thighs began to quiver, then to shake. Then his ass muscles tightened, launching his orgasm. Troy's penis erupted in sprays of white semen that shot out onto the pillow, bed, and headboard in front of him. Troy's clenching and unclenching of his buttocks to squeeze out the splashes of cum tightened the pressure on Appleby's penis, which gave the white master an exquisite wave of pleasure that pushed him into his own eruption. Appleby shouted Troy's name over and over, grinding into the black slave's ass as hard as he could. Pulling back out, he slammed forward again violently, expelling long ropes of semen into the slave beneath him. As Appleby climaxed with a roar he fell hard against the back of Troy even as Hector held on tight to the white man's back, gasping,

The men and boy collapsed in a heap, each one coming apart from another with sucking and plopping sounds. A tangle of dark chocolate and tanned white skin covered the bed. Rapid, gasping breathing filled the air. Moment by moment, though, peace returned to the scene. Stillness gave way to hands reaching out for hands to hold, and gasping for breath gave way to expressions of tenderness and pleasure, the calling of another's name softly: "Master Mark!" "Oh, Troy." "Ah, Hector, come here." And those whisperings gave way to joy, to throaty laughter, to mocking impersonations of "Soap?" "Soap!" Laughing, slapping each other's thighs and buttocks, the three rose from the bed, stretched, and surveyed the scene. The strong, musky scent of semen mixed with soap and sweat in the room.

"Let's… let's make Pan and Bacchus clean this up," said Appleby, and Troy and Hector roared with laughter, agreeing with their master. But although still early, the morning was moving on and each had his own business to attend to. The three agreed on a quick bath. Hector ran ahead to pump and heat water, while Appleby and Troy gathered up a few clothes and the snifters and opened the windows to air the room. The brandy they left by the bed on the table.

The black man and boy and the white master each felt happy pleasure at seeing each other take turns in the tub, at seeing how water glistened on light or dark skin, changing the contours of muscles. But the sun was up and there was work to be done, so they finished their baths, toweled themselves and each other, and dressed for the day. Appleby shaved at a basin and mirror in the corner of the bath room as his black slaves, who did not need to do so yet, looked closely in wonder and delight. Bread and fruit in the pantry, brought there during the storm the previous evening, provided breakfast for all of them. Then the Africans went out to their work, while Appleby worked in the study writing more letters, consulting some of the many reference books there, and reading the mail from two days before.

Late in the morning, the thirteen year old twins Pan and Bacchus came bursting into the house through the pantry door in their usual high spirits. Appleby met them in the hallway where they ran to him and embraced him tightly.

"Oh, Master Mark, we missed you so much!" said Bacchus, "Athena and the baby – they haven't named her yet – are doing well" continued Pan, "but Mama Juno says we can't come back here for a few days yet," said Bacchus, "can you do without us?" finished Pan.

By answer Appleby roughly and playfully rubbed their kinky peppercorn hair and bent down to plant kisses on their wide, trumpet shaped lips. "Boys, Troy slept here last night," he said, uttering the bare truth. "His room needs cleaning and a fresh fire laid. He will be staying here while Athena recovers." The boys whistled low at the news in wonder, then considered that they had spent some nights in the main house, so they supposed that Troy was entitled to the same. Agreeing, they scampered upstairs. Returning to the study, Appleby smiled to himself as the sound of pattering footsteps upstairs told the tale. First, into his room, and a low muffled sound of exclamation. Then across the hall to find and enter Troy's room. Silence. Some animated, low voices. Then some whoops of laughter and the sound of two boys jumping on the sticky bed. Appleby continued working in the study until he heard the twins come down the stairs, their chores upstairs completed. He met them in the hallway; they were loaded down with laundry.

"We cleaned your room up, Master Mark," said Pan. "Troy's, too," said Bacchus, and both boys hung their heads to hide smiles, suppressing giggles and exchanging sidelong glances. "We're taking Troy's sheets to be washed," continued Bacchus, "but yours don't need to be," said Pan, pointedly. Smiling indulgently, Appleby slapped each one playfully on the rear and gave a packet of letters to the boys, asking them to give them to Troy for the mail boat. They agreed to do so and scampered out of the house.

Appleby spent the rest of the morning with papers and records in the study, then he examined the books in the library. It was not terribly large but was adequate, and contained a well balanced array on many subjects. He noted with interest that his Aunt Lucy must have kept it as current as her tastes and purse allowed, and he vowed to keep up that practice.

Before investigating the pantry to see what might be there for lunch, Appleby felt the call of nature and walked out across the lawn to the nearby outhouse. Both doors, to the men's and women's sides, stood ajar. Entering the men's side, he pulled shut the door with the shape of the sun cut out of the wood, pulled down his trousers and underwear, and settled over one of the two holes cut in the wide, rough plank seat. The place had a definite odor to it but its open construction in the back and the day's fresh sea breeze kept it from being positively unpleasant. Appleby examined a stack of weathered old newspapers kept in a corner of the stall for purposes of hygiene. The dates on them confirmed their appearance, they had been there for years. He was glad he had ordered subscriptions of fresh newspapers to be sent by the mail boat, even if it would take a week for any news to reach him.

Glancing at the ancient headlines on one, Appleby heard footsteps approaching the building. As they came nearer, it was plain that they were headed for the men's side. The door opened and in stepped Priam, blinking in the deep gloom of the outhouse. Momentarily blinded by the shade, and not expecting anyone else, the fifty year old father of Hector and Troy had unfastened the cord holding his rough breeches up when with a start he saw his master sitting on one of the two holes, his pants down around his ankles.

"Beg pardon, Master Mark, I'll… I'll come back later. Should I come back later?" Priam seemed unusually indecisive, as if unsure which would give greater offense, fleeing the outhouse at the sight of his master or sitting down and defecating next to him. "No, Priam, stay, please!" said Appleby. "There is room for two," he added humorously, indicating the adjoining hole with a flourish. Moving slowly, as if still unsure, Priam untied the cord and dropped his pants, then lowered himself over the second hole, two feet [60 cm] away from his master. Frankly watching him all the while, Appleby recognized the family trait of firm, high, muscular buttocks that he shared with his sons, and which Appleby had seen two nights ago when he spied through a torn curtain as Priam fucked his wife in their cabin. Appleby had not seen Priam's magnificent organ, though, as it had been buried inside the woman – and although his glimpse was brief it was clear that Priam's member was every bit as large as Troy's, heavy and massive. Priam settled on the hole and cleared his throat. His huge snake dived down the hole; Appleby could just see the start of the shaft, inky black and lightly oiled. A few grey hairs dusted the thick mat of pubic hair at the base of his abdomen. Appleby felt his own organ begin to twitch.

Both men sat letting nature take its course. Appleby's bowels moved audibly, to his relief, but he thought as he let out a soft groan that he saw Priam sneak a peek at his white master's exposed thigh, pubic hair, and the base of his own thick, pink shaft. Appleby's bowel movement inspired something in Priam, for with a grunt and a grimace on his craggy, black face he, too, expelled his waste into the hole below.

Relaxed in the aftermath, and waiting to see if there would be more, Priam seemed to loosen up socially as well. "Are you comfortable here, Master Mark?" he asked. "I expect it is all very different for you."

"Yes, very comfortable, thank you," he said. "I have… I have so enjoyed meeting the people," he said in the understatement of the year. Deciding to probe Priam a bit more, and reaching for a sheet of newspaper with which to clean himself, he said, "I think I am something different for many of the people here as well!"

That brought a chuckle from the man, who turned his face, still handsome and strong after fifty years, toward his white master. "Yes, sir, we served Miss Lucy, of course, but very few, uh, others ever came to Seaward," he said. Then a little more softly, "Very few white people." He paused. "Hardly ever any white men," and Appleby was sure he glanced again, quickly, at his master's naked loins.

"Ah, I think I have sensed that in your sons, and in Pan and Bacchus," and then he quickly added, "and the others, of course. I think very few of them have seen many white men!"

Priam seemed to be making a decision as to what to say, how much of himself to reveal. Choosing his words carefully, he continued as he himself tore newspaper and cleaned himself. "I was… I was taken from Africa when I was ten, Master Mark. Brought here on a ship and sold in the market in Charleston to Master Richardson's father, forty years ago. I saw many white men for the first time on the ships and many in Charleston." He paused, looking into the distance, remembering. "Some were kind and honorable." He paused again, and glanced quickly once more at his master's naked thigh and pubic area. "Some were not."

Rising suddenly he said, "Beg pardon, sir, I must be going." As he pulled up his loincloth and trousers quickly, Appleby was sure that Priam's massive penis had grown in the short while he was there, was standing out just a little from his muscular thighs. Appleby also rose to pull up his pants, and this time Priam did look at his master's penis, revealed for but a moment before he was clothed again. Clearing his throat, Priam led the way out of the structure into the sunlight. "Troy and I are taking the boat into Charleston in the morning, master. Would you like to come with us?" Eager for a change of scene, and seeing an opportunity to conclude some business with Horatio Smith, his attorney, Appleby quickly agreed. The men parted, and Appleby returned to the house for his simple lunch.

Entering the main house, Appleby washed his hands and face at the bath room pump in preparation for lunch. Hearing the pantry door open and close, Appleby walked around to find Troy standing in the hallway, looking left and right.

"Good afternoon, Master Mark," he said, his dark handsome face softening in a smile. "I came to see if you needed anything." Despite the pleasures he had shared with his master the night before and that morning, Troy was surprised when the white man stepped up to him and quickly embraced him, smiling into his own face and keeping a hand on his shoulder near the neck, gently massaging the dense muscle there. Appleby felt drawn to this powerful young man as to a magnet. Troy's dark color seemed to pull him in, the heavy muscles that filled out his loose shirt and rough trousers seemed weighted with gravity. The shirt, opened at the top to allow hard physical work, revealed a slight trickle of sweat running down through the valley between two solid globes of chest muscle. A wave of sheer delight ran through Appleby, and he leaned in again quickly to kiss the thick ebony trunk of his slave's neck, smelling the workday smells of sweat, sawdust, and smoke.

"I need that, Troy. Thank you for coming to see me. Have you eaten, would you like lunch?" Surprised anew at every kindness, every intimacy, Troy smiled again and said he had not eaten but would like to do so. Rummaging in the pantry for food left by the twins in between running errands at the birthing cabin, the two men sat down at a corner of the dining room table and ate. They talked lightly of the activities of the day – Appleby spared his slave a description of his visit with Priam – their talk often interrupted with soft laughter. Once, in a moment of mirth, Appleby covered Troy's hand, lying on the table top, with his own and squeezed. Troy smiled and shifted his hand around to oppose his tan palm to the pink and white palm of his master, dark fingers interlocking with white ones. Conversation stopped as both men simply looked at the sight, and each thought it was beautiful beyond words.

Their meal finished, Troy announced a need to return to his chores. The men rose and exchanged a quick kiss, then out the door went the black man. Warm weather having returned after the storm of the night before, Appleby decided that he would hike over the island, learning its features. Selecting a walking stick in the hallway, he set out on his adventure.

Appleby walked many of the paths on which Hector had led him before, enjoying the fresh green smells, the earthy vapors, that the storm had brought. A few branches were torn down by the wind, but otherwise there was little damage to the island. Appleby lingered at the gardens, fields, and meadows of Seaward this time, making calculations of the productivity of the island, how many crops its rich soil could support, ways to improve its fertility. In these stops he encountered the males of the island, even the twins, hoeing and planting, weeding and harvesting. Mama Juno also worked in the large vegetable garden; evidently Mama Cass remained to tend to her daughter-in-law. Appleby exchanged cordial greetings with everyone as he passed.

His walk eventually took him to the eastern side of the island, and to the beach there. Climbing up on a rock and looking east, he reminded himself that Africa lay there, ancestral home of his black slaves, and he wondered what it must look and feel like. Appleby continued walking until he found the cove of sand where he and Hector first found physical passion with each other. Sitting on the soft sand of the cove, pleasant memories brought a swelling to his groin. Hoping to recreate some of the feelings of that experience, but also feeling sweaty from his walk, he rose and removed his clothing, carefully laying the items over the surrounding bushes to dry them, and then ran naked into the sea.

In and out of waves, over and under, his strong body moved, becoming increasingly tanned by the Southern sun. Enjoying the exercise, he paused navel-deep in the gentle waves to wipe the salt water from his eyes and to catch his breath. Looking up at the beach, at the cove where he had left his clothing, he realized he was not alone. Squatting on the sand in the very spot where he had rested was Helen, the eleven year old sister of Troy and Hector. Seeing that she had been discovered, she jumped up and ran down the sand to the edge of the waves, which lapped at her toes as they rolled in to shore. She wore a simple, one piece shapeless dress that she was clearly meant to 'grow into' as it was just a bit large for her. The neck of the garment slid just off of one shoulder, revealing dark, gleaming skin over a rounded muscle; she was well developed for a girl of her age. She smiled and waved vigorously.

"Hello, Master Mark!" she said. "What are you doing?"

"Good afternoon, Miss Helen," he said, bowing courteously, glad for the frothy waves that covered his nakedness. "I am swimming, if you please," he said with mock formality.

"I know," she said, giggling and covering her mouth with her hand. Looking around and out to sea, she asked, "Master Mark, do you have an ocean like this where you come from?"

"Indeed I do, in fact, it is the same ocean."

Her eyes grew wide in wonder and her mouth made an "Oh!" Appleby saw that she shared the dark coloring of the rest of her family, the same brilliant white teeth, the same dark smudge of eyebrow and wide, pear shaped nose. Her mouth, though, was different, undoubtedly inherited from her mother. While her father and brothers had a wide mouth and prominent, plumlike lower lip, her lips were also full but perfectly symmetrical top and bottom, and her mouth was not as wide, making a purple-brown rosebud. She wore her night-black hair in tufts – not braids but many twisted tufts about two inches [5 cm] long that spiked out from her head in all directions. Appleby thought it was strangely exotic, and although utterly new in his experience, attractive in its own way.

"I'm going swimming, too!" she announced, and before Appleby could comment or reflect, she ran back to the sandy cove, in one move pulled off her dress which she spread out on a bush, and ran toward the sea. As she approached, Appleby stared in surprise and fascination at her dark, lithe, boyish body. It was similar in many ways to her father and brother: deep dark chocolate skin, muscles well defined but softer and rounder as befitted her age and sex. Her belly was trim and taught, but showed neither fat nor the bulges of muscle that her male relatives sported. As she came close enough to splash into the water, Appleby could not see any hair on her body at all, not even her pubic area, where the clearly defined trough of the vagina could be seen in place of a penis and testicles – but her skin was so dark that there might have been some black curls there and he would not have seen them. Her breasts were the size of oranges, cupping out from a flat plane of thin muscle on her chest; they did not hang at all but simply pushed out, with a dark nipple in the center of each one. Although unmistakably female, in many ways she looked like a boy, like her brothers – a boy with small breasts and a hidden penis.

The water shone on her dark skin, reflecting the sun, water running in little streams between her breasts as she splashed into the water. She came within ten feet [3 m] of her master and then, shrieking in delight, darted under the waves. For several minutes she popped up here and there around Appleby, swimming under the water from place to place, shouting to him each time she emerged. Laughing, he waved and called back to her. Was it his imagination or did she swim closer and closer to him with each passage? No, it must be true; once he felt her brush by his thigh as she wriggled by.

Eventually she emerged, splashing and blowing water, five feet [1.50 m] from him and paused for breath. Sea water glinted in the matted tufts of her hair, and her boyish face broke into a big grin. Brown slave girl and white master regarded each other in smiling silence for a moment. Was it old memories of intimacies with the girls of his youth, or was it her resemblance to her brothers that caused a stirring in his penis, under the water? She broke the brief silence.

"Master Mark, are there black people where you come from? You know, people like me?"

"Yes, there are," he replied, "although I did not get to know many of them before I came here. I am sorry for that, I should have. I…" he hesitated, "I would have enjoyed it."

Moving her hands through the water to feel the motion of the waves, she stepped a little closer to Appleby. She was shorter than Hector, a little under five feet [1.50 m] tall, nearly as tall as Pan and Bacchus. The water, waist high on Appleby, swirled just over her small breasts.

"We don't see many white people here," she said. "We don't see many white men at all, master!" she continued, giggling as if it were a great treat to encounter such a spectacle. A larger wave than usual crashed around them, now only three feet [90 cm] apart, threatening to knock her off her feet, covering her mouth and nose and momentarily lifting her from her feet.

"It's too deep here, master, come!" she said, and reached out to grab his hand. Appleby realized that she was pulling him in toward shore, and that his penis, which had begun to swell ominously with her physical closeness, would soon be visible. He thought for a moment of protesting, then decided to let matters take their course. He followed as she tugged at his hand, the naked dark-colored girl pushing through the water with a sense of purpose. He saw that her bottom had the high, upward push of her brothers' butts, but a slight swelling of the bones of the pelvis gave a more feminine promise to it. Together they rose from the water until it was just below his knees, and just below the well defined notch of her vagina.

"There!' she said, turning around, "that's better!" She kept tight hold of his hand though, even as she faced him. A look of curiosity and surprise came over her face as she saw her master's tanned white body for the first time in its complete nakedness. The color of his skin, the texture of his hair, fascinated her. Coming closer, she reached up with her free hand to run her fingers through his wet, long brown hair, to trace the path of light brown hair at the center of his chest that ran down across his belly, to rub his rose colored nipples. Appleby's penis, already swelling, sprang fully to life as her small dark brown fingers neared his pubic area. She was close enough so that it pushed out against her, gently nudging her at the top of her slim, boyish brown belly. She giggled in delight and squeezed his hand harder. The slave girl paused for a moment and then quickly grasped her white master's organ in her dark brown fist. Silently she began running her fist up and down the shaft of the organ. Clear precum flowed out and mixed with seawater. "Ooooo" she cooed, and briefly rubbed the slick liquid over the dark purple head of his dick.

Appleby was beside himself, balanced between her close resemblance to her brothers and the unmistakable evidence of being a girl. Releasing his hand from hers, he cupped both of her small breasts in his palms, kneading them softly, running his thumbs around her nipples. Giggling happily, she applied the hand he had now freed to his penis, clutching two dark brown fists around the organ. The pace of her pumping increased gradually as a look of concentration came over her face, focused on his stiff rod, belly, and chest.

"Master Mark," she whispered, "do white men make juice like black boys do?"

"Yes," he said, more a moan than a statement. Wondering how she knew what black boys do, he kneaded her perfectly round breasts more vigorously. She increased the pace of pumping his hose, tightening her grip.

"Is it the same color of juice that black boys make?" she asked, a little breathlessly.

"You are about to find out," he said in a hoarse whisper, and with that he heaved his groin forwards. Three long ropes of white cum shot out and landed on the wet, dark, sun-bright skin of her belly and between her breasts. She kept pumping and another great shot of cum landed on her dark brown neck and chin. Appleby issued a long, continuous groan from deep in his chest as his hips clenched and relaxed, clenched and relaxed. He squeezed her round, black breasts hard, but she did not protest.

Inexpertly, she kept pumping at the same hard, vigorous pace. "Slow down!" he gasped, and she complied, now simply massaging and squeezing her master's organ, which gave him intense shivers of pleasure. Rivulets of slimy semen began making their way down her wet, dark skin. Eventually, he released her breasts, and taking that as a hint, she removed her hands from his engorged shaft. It flopped down, dribbling semen into the foamy water. Smiling at each, the white man leaned over quickly and kissed her full rosebud lips. She smiled brilliantly, then slipped around him and dove into the sea. He followed, both white man and dark brown slave girl cleaning themselves in the healing waters of the ocean. Going a little farther out, he turned to see her emerge from the sea, running back towards the cove, pumping leg muscles working her muscular butt. He began moving toward shore also, but not quickly enough. Snatching her simple dress from off of the bush, she slipped it on over her slim brown body just as he was emerging from the water. She waved, smiled at him the brilliant smile that her brothers shared, then turned and push through the bushes and was gone. He heard the movement of the undergrowth for a moment, then all was quiet.

Happy and tired from the day's labors, both in and out of bed, Appleby came out of the water and let the late afternoon sun dry him on the beach. Dressing, he made his way back up the familiar path toward the big house. Entering, he examined the mail that Troy had brought that day from the passing mail boat, which prompted another round of letters to be prepared to go out in the morning. Making a simple sandwich from supplies in the pantry, he sat on the verandah, rocking and munching, listening to the sounds of the slaves as they went here and there about their business.

Twilight darkened to night, the moon rose, and insects sang as Appleby rocked, thought, and made plans. Hearing steps coming around the side of the verandah, he was pleased to see Troy's dark figure walk up the porch stairs, a smile revealing white teeth that matched the brilliance of his clean shirt.

"Hello, Master Mark," he said. "Did you eat?"

"Yes, did you?"

"Yes sir, I did." The strong black man stood near his master and looked out into the night, inhaling the scents of the evening, honeysuckle and sea air. "I just bathed in the sea, master, down at the pier," he said.

"I did also, on the east side of the island," replied Appleby, both men smiling companionably at each other. "Sit, Troy," said Appleby, indicating the rocker beside him, "I'll be right back." Appleby walked quickly into the study, then came back out again onto the porch, holding two snifters half-full of Napoleon brandy. He gave one to his slave who thanked him in words and with a full smile. Both men sat quietly, rocking peacefully, making small talk about the night, the good health of Athena and her baby, the work of the plantation.

Sounds from the grounds and cabins around the house faded away as the people made ready for the night. Appleby, his and Troy's glasses drained, stood. "Come," he said softly, and held out a tanned white hand. Troy took hold of it with his dark brown hand and stood. Side by side, the two walked into the hallway and up the stairs to bed.

Chapter six

"Master Mark, wake up! Ooooo, that's nice, but we can't, we don't have time, Papa will be waiting with the boat – oooo! Oh, master, that feels good, but wake up!"

Mark Appleby's sight returned, as the world darkened to the early morning light of his own bedroom. The panther had turned into Troy, his twenty year old black slave, stretched out full length beside him. The nuzzling at the neck and nibbling at the ear were real. The tail…. the tail was Troy's swollen penis, laid across the white man's thigh, which he had grasped with his hand and was slowly pumping and kneading.

"Master, please, not… ooooo, yes!… but we really need to…aaaaa!" Troy was torn between duty and pleasure. He knew he should stop, but each pump of his master's hand, each time the white hand bent the head of the full black snake downward a bit, a wave of pleasure flowed over him, making him clench his ass muscles and push his penis forward into his master's hand. Appleby likewise realized that they needed to begin the day since they were sailing into Charleston, but he felt mischievous and enjoyed the pleasure he was giving his slave.

Troy quickly became lost in the rhythm of joy, aware that at any rate it would soon be over. The white man began pumping harder as Troy stopped talking and began breathing heavily. He put his head of crinkly black hair on his master's shoulder and laid a dark chocolate brown arm across the white tanned chest. His legged moved on top of his master's and he began rutting, pushing his groin back and forth in time to the pumping. It did not take long. His whole body clenched, spasming, shooting thick lines of white semen onto his master and across his master to the sheets of the bed. Gasping for breath, he clutched his master's chest tightly. As his breathing slowed, he reached for the white man's full penis, but Appleby decided to be responsible in that moment, having taken enough pleasure from giving pleasure to his slave.

"No, you are right, we have to be up!" he said, kissing Troy quickly and springing from bed. Groaning and laughing, Troy jumped up as well. The two men cleaned themselves and each other from the basin of water near the bed, and Troy watched his master shave, rubbing his own chin in hopes that a need had arisen to remove some kinky hairs from his own face – but alas, it had not! Dressing quickly, for they feared they would be late for the tide, they stopped by the pantry on the way out, stuffing their pockets with bread for a breakfast on the way. Appleby had business in the city of Charleston, a smudge on the horizon, and so he had dressed more formally, wearing a hat, tie and coat for the first time since coming to Seaward.

Priam, Troy's fifty year old father, did not complain when the two men came running down the stone steps to the pier on the west side of the island, panting from their hurry. The two black men were expert sailors in the small craft, the Hesperus, and guided it out into the open sea where a favorable wind caught its two sails. Munching bread and talking companionably, Troy and Appleby breathed in the fresh sea air. Priam was more silent, lost in his own thoughts, and manned the rudder of the sturdy boat. A brisk wind pushed the boat speedily toward the shore. The wooden homes, tall steeples, train station, government buildings and warehouses of the city became clearly visible.

With great skill, Priam and Troy guided their boat to its berth on a long pier at the harbor, securing it tightly to the steel rings bolted into the boards of the uprights. Appleby had a plan for his day in the city, the first part of which required his slaves to follow him. He set the pace into the heart of the town, consulting a hand-drawn map he had made from an atlas he found in his study, while the black men followed looking in wonder at the city that was still strange to them despite the fact that they visited it about once a week. It was strange for its congestion, for being on the mainland, for having so many white people – and they also found the other blacks different. People of their color here seemed much more servile, even cringing, especially in public. Knowing the need to adapt, they avoided eye contact with the white people they saw, stepping off the board sidewalks and into the muddy street when necessary to let them pass.

Appleby stopped at a long row of shops, checking off each destination from his list as they went. At an apothecary's shop he ordered medical supplies and a few basic instruments, patent medicines, bandages, and rare dried herbs. At a dry goods store, he asked for bolts of cloth, spools of thread, needles, scissors, pins. Stopping at the telegraph office, he sent a number of telegrams. Troy and Priam exchanged guarded looks of surprise when he stopped at a gun shop and ordered half a dozen double-barreled shotguns, powder, flint, wadding, shot, and other necessaries. At a granary office he ordered large waterproof sacks of dried wheat, rice, and oats. At a store serving the fishing boats down by the harbor, he ordered netting and floats. In each place of business, he indicated his servants who would return to collect the goods in another hour or two. His last stop with Troy and Priam was at a stable, to rent a simple but spacious cart and a mule to pull it, to be ready in half an hour's time.

Walking out into one of the public squares near the stable, Appleby stopped by the window of an establishment offering meat pies, bread, and beer for sale, with tables inside for eating. "Does that look good to you?" he asked Troy and Priam, who peered around his shoulder.

"Yes, Master Mark," each replied.

"Let's go eat," said Appleby, and began to open the door, when Priam whispered urgently at him, "Master! we cannot go in there with you!" Taken aback, having become completely used to the easy life he lived with the slaves of Seaward, Appleby thought for a moment.

"Alright, I will buy some food and drink and bring it out here, we can sit in the park here in the middle of the square."

Troy and Priam exchanged pained glances, and Troy whispered in a mixture of sorrow and urgency, "No, Master Mark, we can't do that, either. We can't be seen eating with you."

Appleby was at a loss, and a wave of disappointment washed over him. "The boat?" he asked.

"No, master," said Priam, now smiling gently as if explaining how things were to a child, "not there either. We cannot be seen eating together."

Appleby's disappointment changed to anger, and then to determination. "Wait here," he said, plunging into the shop, leaving his worried slaves on the board sidewalk. He came out with two baskets, one containing food for two, one with a solitary meal. Handing the larger basket to Priam he said, "This is for the two of you. Probably best to eat it at the boat." Priam nodded agreement, looking with interest at his master. It was agreed that the black men should collect the morning's orders in the mule cart and take the goods to the boat. They also had some equipment and stores for Seaward that they themselves needed to pick up, or that the women had requested, so they headed off, nodding courteously to their master. Looking at them go, Appleby heaved a sigh, then crossed to the park to eat his lonely lunch on a bench.

His good spirits somewhat restored by the meal, Appleby's first stop of the afternoon was at the lawyer's, Hector Smith. Smith expressed a pleased surprise to see him, but Appleby explained that as he had to be in town on business anyway, he decided to go ahead and sign the papers that Smith had previously planned to bring over to Seaward later in the week.

"You are quite determined, then, Appleby?" Smith inquired. "As your attorney, I must urge caution…although you are surely rich enough to buy replacements later on if you see that this was in error."

"Now, Smith," said Appleby, drawing himself up to deliver a little speech he had composed for the occasion, "as I told you in my letter two weeks ago, Professor Nutbottom of Yale has proven his new economic theory that a wage incentive for the stimulation of industrial and agricultural – "

Smith raised his hand, smiling indulgently. "Enough, my friend, you will have your new-fangled Northern ways I suppose. I make no further objection. Here are the papers," he said, pulling them from a safe. Calling in his clerk to witness, he notarized them and made Appleby sign three copies, handing two copies to him and putting another back into his safe.

"This is all now perfectly legal and complete, is it?"

"Yes, my friend, it is. You know what to do with one of those copies."

"I do, and I thank you. Oh…" Appleby said, picking up his hat and making ready to leave, "this is strictly confidential, is it not? I don't want to be embarrassed if my, um, economic theories fail."

"Strictly legal, strictly confidential. Thank you, so nice to see you again. You must sail back over for dinner some time," said Smith, with genuine affection for his law school classmate.

Stepping into the street, Appleby could barely suppress a guffaw. Professor Nutbottom, indeed – of course, there was no such person. Just part of a necessary ruse. But then Appleby was momentarily startled. Did he see Priam ducking behind a building at the end of the block? No doubt he was mistaken, there were so many African men in Charleston. Appleby walked around for a bit, having two hours free until the appointed time to meet his men at the boat. Up and down he walked, admiring spacious white wooden houses with cast iron railings around two story verandahs.

After about half an hour, he turned down a street that appeared to house several businesses. Walking by a stone building with an open window he was stopped abruptly by the sound of a whip… a whip meeting flesh. A voice cried out in pain, and it had the throaty resonance of an African voice. "STAND against that wall when I tell ye, ye damned blackamoor!" another voice, white, bellowed in a roar. Appleby looked at the bars on the windows set in the stone wall, at the sign Negroes for sale over the door, and realized with revulsion that this was a place where slaves were bought and sold… and evidently mistreated. A sense of horror warred with anger in his mind. He stumbled away quickly, keeping his eye on the barred window, and nearly tripped over the front stoop of the next business down the way. Recovering himself, he looked straight up the steps into the eyes of the man who stood there.

"Yas, yas, a disgraceful business, old Levitt over there…. scares the customers and damages the goods, dontcha know." There stood a middle aged man with pasty skin, a fat, doughy face pushing out a bulbous red nose, and greasy hair coming out from under a greasier, ancient hat. He was quite portly, and his clothes neither the cleanest nor the newest.

"McGillicuddy, Aloysius McGillicuddy is the name, yas, yas," he said, lunging at Appleby with a grubby hand held out for a shake. Appleby took it, as much to steady himself from his near fall as out of sociability. It was… well, it was sticky.

"Mark Appleby, at your service, sir," came the polite reply.

"Have you an establishment here in town or in the country, if I may so inquire?" said McGillicuddy in a wheezy, nasal voice.

"I own Seaward Plantation, out…" Appleby gestured toward the port, "out there."

"Ah, a land owner! A plantation! No doubt always in need of servants. Come sir, let me invite you in for a drink and perhaps to inspect my stock." McGillicuddy heaved a stout leg down a step and cupped a fat hand around Appleby's shoulder, guiding him toward the door. It was then that Appleby saw the sign above this door: A. McGillicuddy and Co., Negroes Sold and Bought.

"I… I have no need for more servants, sir," said Appleby, feeling a sudden distaste for the whole matter.

"Of course, yas, yas, but it can't hurt to look, can it? We never know in life," said McGillicuddy, hooking a grubby finger in his vest and lifting a grubbier finger into the air, "what life will bring. Suppose you return to your estates and find the pox has taken off half your servants? What then, yas? No obligation, sir, I assure you, come in and examine the stock, no need to buy today at all, no, no, just looking, eh? To be aware of what may be had, and at what price?"

Naturally courteous, Appleby did not wish to be rude. And he had more than an hour before needing to meet Priam and Troy. And… and to tell the truth, he was curious. A little… interested. Perhaps… drawn. He had no experience of slave markets in Boston. He had had nothing but the most wonderful (and indeed, life-changing) experiences of the slaves of Seaward. Could it hurt? What could it hurt!

"I… I suppose so, but for just a short while. Really, sir, I have no need of servants at the moment and I have… I have other appointments this afternoon." He did not add, of course, that his only appointment was with two of his own slaves, one of whom he was physically intimate with.

"Yas, yas, all understood quite well," said McGillicuddy, leading Appleby into a dingy hallway. "Now, I must tell you, all our stock are in the best physical condition, well fed, examined by the finest veterinarian in town, Doctor Ladwig. All bathe fresh first thing every morning so as to purge all offensive odors, yas, yas. And we have only just opened for business, at one o'clock, sir, so you see our stock at its freshest and most, uh, untried."

They passed locked doors with barred windows, through which Appleby could make out stark rooms lined with benches, black people inside milling around listlessly or sitting on the benches. Males and females appeared to be separated in different rooms. Soft voices could be heard, nothing more. He could not imagine what McGillicuddy meant by offensive odors; there were none, and he had certainly smelled none on the people of Seaward. He could not say the same for McGillicuddy.

"Now, sir, if you will sit here," said McGillicuddy, showing Appleby into a small room. It had a single wooden chair next to a table with a few objects on it. McGillicuddy gestured grandly toward a particularly dirty glass half full of some beverage, the sight of which revolted Appleby. "What may I show you, sir? We have some very nice wenches," he said, winking and guffawing, a wave of horrible breath rolling out of him toward Appleby. Turning his head briefly Appleby said, "no, no need of such."

"No? field hands, then."

"I, I have no large fields, sir. My servants do lighter, useful work in small fields, gardens, and the house."

"Ah, yas, yas. You want presentable servants… no wenches? no, no, you said so, yas. Well, then comely male servants for footmen, valets, butlers, and the like, eh?" Appleby nodded, eager now to get the thing over with and be on his way, away from the odious McGillicuddy.

"Right!" said the slave dealer, showing more quickness than he had so far, "Let me find, shall we say five or six likely speciments for house slaves? Also, good breeding stock, I assure you. Now, here," he said, indicating the objects on the table, "is some goose grease. You may wish, sir, to make… an examination," said McGillicuddy, "to check for piles and other infirmities." Appleby looked in shocked fascination at the pot of grease on the table. "And here sir, are towels and soap and water… oh, and some waste paper if you wish to examine the Negroes for," and here he winked horribly and grinned, showing a line of rotting teeth, "for their breeding potential. Quite alright, sir, quite the done thing, feel free." Appleby looked at him questioningly, genuinely puzzled. "Oh, you know sir," said McGillicuddy, and made the unmistakable motion of masturbation with his right hand. "Good breeders, dontcha know, yas!" He guffawed again and left the room to find some… some goods.

In the hallway was the sound of McGillicuddy giving loud directions and the answering murmur of soft voices, the shuffling of feet, the opening and closing of doors. Appleby thought about what was to happen. Examinations? for piles? for breeding potential? He began imagining what he could do, what would happen. Powerful, contradictory feelings rose up in him. He remembered that when he was a boy, his mother expressly told him not to eat any of a pie she had left to cool in a pie cupboard. Of course, he ate the whole thing, with shocking intestinal consequences, but it felt so good to do it while he was eating. Appleby now stared into the pit of something he felt to be evil and wrong… but his imagination told him that it would feel so good. Not for the first time since coming to the South, the spirit of slavery arose in him, a spirit of total control and ownership over other people's bodies. He began to think, to plan, to lust.

"Now, sir," said McGillicuddy, a little breathless, wheezing in the doorway, "I have some prime Negroes here in the hallway, sir, and will send them in one at a time for your perusal. I know, I know! not buying today! But can't hurt to look, can it? Look 'em over, send 'em out, I'll send in another one" he said jovially, then reached over and pulled into the doorway the first slave that Appleby would examine.

Into the room McGillicuddy pushed a coal black youth of perhaps eighteen, then departed down the hall. The young man stood with head bowed, awaiting orders. He was six feet [1.80 m] tall, whippet thin with long, hard but thin muscles up and down his arms and legs. His belly was thin, rising out of flat-sided hips that curved out in back, pressing against the tight, white cloth wrap that was his only garment. His abdomen did not have prominent muscles but was a plain of smooth muscle beneath night black skin, so black it was nearly purple. His chest was high, and made of two taught, rounded but generously thick muscles with pointed, deep black nipples on oiled skin. It appeared as if his whole body might have been lightly oiled for presentation in the market. Appleby was overcome. He rose.

"Come," was all he said. The slave approached, eyes still downcast. Appleby stood a foot [30 cm] from him, then reached out and with a violent jerk pulled off his wrap. It fell, revealing a long, ten inch [25 cm] penis, not very thick in the shaft, that curved slightly to the left. A surprisingly dense, bushy patch of black pubic hair sprang out from above this snake, and continued down around the youth's penis onto his balls, which were carried in a large ballsack that dangled four inches [10 cm] below his groin. A feeling of total power and control surged over Appleby. With his hand he lifted the chin of the slave, who nevertheless kept his eyes downcast. Thick, wide lips, purple brown and of equal size top and bottom, a wide nose with flared nostrils, thin jet black eyebrows, heavy turtle lids on his eyes in a thin, long face. His head must have been shaved only a few weeks ago, for tiny, wiry hairs covered his scalp tightly, not grown enough yet to have formed a cap of hair. Appleby, in total freedom, ran his hand over the rough, sandpapery texture of the youth's scalp. There was no sound and no complaint. With both hands he massaged the lips, pushing his thumbs into the mouth, which the boy opened for inspection. Cupping both hands over the high chest muscles he kneaded them, pinching the nipples hard, making the youth wince – and Appleby did that because he could.

Sitting down, his own penis straining against his trousers and breathing rapidly, Appleby said, "Turn around, bend over." The youth did so, exposing tight buttocks and a wrinkled dark brown asshole. Appleby looked at the firm ass for a moment and then slapped it hard, making the boy gasp, and he did it because he could. Coating his finger with the grease from the pot, Appleby plunged it into the hole, not caring what he 'examined' but merely wanting to show his dominance over the youth, who grunted as he grabbed his knees. Appleby wiggled his finger around, pushing it in as hard as he could, then withdrew it. "Turn around," he said again, and when the youth did so, Appleby caught up a piece of wastepaper. Looking at the enormous penis, he grasped it and began to pump, slowly at first, then faster. The night black youth looked to one side and his high, rounded, muscled chest began to rise and fall more rapidly. Appleby could see the youth's heartbeat pulsing the skin beneath his high chest. Involuntarily, the penis grew in Appleby's hands, deep brown head creeping out of the oily, silky, jet black hood. Appleby tightened his grip and pumped it, squeezing each time his hand moved towards the head. The boy's head lolled from side to side, he swallowed hard, his pelvis began slowly pushing forward; he did not want to do these things but the white man's attentions were more than he could resist.

For the first time in his own voice, the youth hoarsely spoke: "O! Master!" and powerfully cocked his pelvis forward and up, his smooth belly muscles tightening. A plume of white semen erupted out of his penis and fell down over Appleby's hand and along the pulsing shaft of the dick. Twice more he shot out his seed, then quivered and stood still. Appleby caught the white liquid in the waste paper, examined it closely, smelling it, then discarding it. He washed his hands, turned the youth around and slapped his ass again, propelling him into the hallway naked, his only cloth covering snatched up in haste as he ran. The white man was beginning to feel drunk with power.

Again McGillicuddy appeared, his fat hand around the neck of a powerfully built man, milk chocolate, perhaps in his late twenties or early thirties, six and a half feet [1.95 m] tall. A powerful neck grew straight up into a bullet shaped head, also covered with tiny little black wiggles of hair indicating a recent shaving. Small, bent ears grew above columns of neck muscle. His eyes were dark and lowered, his nose surprisingly small for so large a man, mouth surprisingly small by rounded like a purple brown heart. Heavy lobes of milk chocolate chest muscle arched out over a belly that, although muscled, showed a little flesh on it, with a slightly protruding navel. Heavy rolls of muscle like hams and sausages rolled along his arms and pillar-like legs. Was this a 'house slave' and not a field hand? Appleby gave it very little thought.

"Come," he called again, and the slave approached, to have his thin white garment ripped from his loins like the last black. A very thick but not very long penis over heavy but tight, close-in testicles was revealed. The foreskin ran beyond the head, ending in a little pucker of skin. A few tight whorls of pubic hair grew above his thick cock. "Turn," said Appleby, and the large man did so, revealing heavy, prominent, rounded buttocks. Appleby wordlessly pushed the man on his upper back. The slave knew what was expected and bent over, gripping his knees. He grunted hard as Appleby rammed a finger in the middle of his large bottom, then a second finger, as the man squirmed but dared not protest.

Pulling his fingers out suddenly, he turned the man around and quickly grasped his penis. It thickened even more but did not grow very much longer. His fingers not reaching all the way around it, Appleby applied his other hand, both his white hands sliding up and down on the chocolate rod. The man's breathing picked up, the great curved lobes of his chest muscles moving up and down. His eyes, downcast all the while, daringly focused on Appleby. Appleby gazed straight back into them, two strangers white and black, master and slave, both breathing faster until the black man grunted hard, pulled his hips back fast and slammed them forward faster, and came. His semen came all in one rush, an amount less than the first slave. Appleby did not bother with the pretense of 'examining' it but let it run over his fists and fall to the stone floor. As soon as the white milk stopped flowing, Appleby handed the man his garment, which he silently put back on and just as silently left.

Another slave and then another and another was presented in this way. Appleby was into a different world of power and possession, his trousers spotted with his own leakings. One of the slaves, rail-thin and with a yellowish complexion, dared to speak to Appleby as the white man was pumping his surprisingly dark, long rod: "Master," he panted, "if you want to buy me… I have a wife, master," his breathing became faster, "she's here, master," and it became even faster, "please master…" and he did not finish the thought as he clenched his hips and squeezed out his semen. Afterward, Appleby was too ashamed to speak to him, and the man hung his head in despair as he left.

The second to last offering for sale was pushed into the room by McGillicuddy with his hands on both shoulders, a boy no older than ten. Eyes lowered but his body speaking a message of proud defiance, he walked forward to stand right in front of the white man and removed his own thin garment, more of a g-string than any kind of cloth. He was the deep chocolate color of Troy and Priam, thin boyish muscles on a slender frame, no hair at all on his body but for a tight cap of half inch [1 cm] long kinks and knots on his head. Appleby sat for this examination and wordlessly turned the boy to the side, in profile this time. He greased his thumb instead of finger and shoved it inside the boy's rectum. The boy flinched but made no sound, although his breathing came more quickly. Appleby kept his thumb there to see what would happen. The boy stared straight ahead defiantly, a tough little man, but slowly his small, dark penis, no more than two or three inches [7½ cm] long and thin, began to grow and stick straight out in front of him. The boy, embarrassed, covered himself with his hands. "You like it, don't you" said the white man; in response, the boy hung his head, blushing a darker chocolate. Appleby brushed the boy's hands away quickly and grasped his small organ between thumb and the first two fingers, then began sliding them up and down the straight black rod. It took longer for the boy than for the older slaves, and it occurred to Appleby that few customers would attempt to 'examine' such a young boy for 'breeding potential,' so this may have been a new experience for him. The boy's thin frame began to quiver slightly, then shake. Appleby pushed his thumb into the boy's ass even farther. A puzzled look came over the boy's face and then his knees slumped, almost giving way, and his whole frame shook in a quick, dry orgasm. Panting, he looked sideways at Appleby in frank wonder and amazement. Appleby quickly picked up the g-string from the floor and draped it over the stiff little penis that was sticking out and up at a forty-five degree angle, then slapped him hard on the butt which sent the boy scurrying out of the room.

"Perhaps one more, yas!" cried McGillicuddy, approaching the door from the hallway. Appleby was about to protest. His orgy of power and control, his riot of domination and manipulation, was subsiding. How could he have done this? How could he have behaved so? How could he have so rudely dismissed the slave who feared parting from his wife? He raised his hand and had opened his mouth to decline the offer when he saw the youth McGillicuddy pushed around the corner and into the room.

"Just in last night, sir, a prime mulatto from the Caspar Plantation just up the road, sold from an estate. You, sir, have the privilege of being the first to consider this fine specimen as an addition to your own household staff and, um," and here McGillicuddy's piggish eyes twinkled, 'breeding stock!' He lumbered back into the hallway.

Appleby scarcely heard him, transfixed as he was with the beautiful young man, boy actually, who stood before him. It was as if a marble statue by Michaelangelo had come to life and turned brown. Not a dark brown but a balanced cafe-au-lait color on a flawless skin. He beheld a youth of about sixteen, five and a half feet [1.65 m] tall. His face was strikingly beautiful, a wide forehead with deep-set hazel eyes beneath thin black eyebrows, a nose somewhat longer and less wide, less flared, than among pureblood Africans. His cofee and cream complexion set off a mop of jet black, twisting loose curls lying flat in a tangle around his head, a nest of black snakes that just covered his ears. His face was rounded but not at all fat or puffy. If there was less Africa in his nose, it took its residence in his mouth: full but not wide lips on a thick base that curved out between nose and strong chin, his reddened brown lips formed a full, nearly heart-shaped mouth, a slight crease parting the upper lip in the middle, from which it spread out like wings.

The youth's neck was thin but strong, atop a boxy chest with square, thick pads of muscle and dark red-brown pointed nipples. From his chest, muscles rippled lightly over his ribs as his torso narrowed dramatically to a thin waist; the muscles of his abdomen were not overdeveloped but in perfect proportion, a tube of taut strength. His slightly recessed navel was a lighter color, nearly the color of Appleby's own skin. If this was a houseboy, he had certainly not gone to fat in performing his duties. Below his short white cloth covering were beautifully shaped legs, light brown skin covering flowing muscles.

If he had only arrived in the slave market the night before, as McGillicuddy said, the youth had not had time to be broken down by his sad surroundings and by the humiliations of the experience. He kept his head respectfully bowed, but his eyes peered under long, curling lashes at Appleby. The white man rose and asked a question he had asked of none of the other slaves that afternoon.

"What is your name?"

"My name is Cassius, sir."

"Cassius… I am Mark Appleby."

Surprised at a white man who would tell his name to a slave in these circumstances, the youth nodded thoughtfully, then seemed to gather up some courage, for he said in a rush, "Master, if you buy me, sir… please, sir, my sister is here also." A note of urgency, even desperation crept into his voice. "I can't leave her here, sir… I… oh, please sir, take us both together." Forgetting to avoid eye contact, he looked with urgency into Appleby's eyes.

"Your sister…" Appleby began. "Where are your parents?"

"Our mother died of a fever two years ago, master. Our father…" and here something liquid glinted in the corner of the boy's eye, "our master died a week ago. His wife was embarrassed by us and didn't want to keep us. She sold us to Master McGillicuddy. Please sir," he said, returning to point, "take both of us."

Appleby didn't know what to do. A powerful desire came over him, not to own and control the boy but to discover him, to have him of the boy's own free will, to share himself with him. A sister? What was he to do? He thought of 'examining' the boy but decided he did not want to do that in the filthy offices of the vile McGillicuddy, the floor already slick with semen. And he thought of the poor man with the wife, and how he might make amends in some way to the universe now for his earlier lack of caring.

"Wait here," he told the youth, and went into the hallway. McGillicuddy was rocking in a straight back chair in the door of his office down the hallway, placed so he could monitor who emerged from the room. He jumped up, sensing a sale. Just looking, indeed!

"Yas, yas, have you made a decision?"

"The boy in there, uh, Cassius. He says he has a sister," began Appleby.

"Ah yes, very natural you should be interested, sir, very natural – if you'll excuse me," he said, popping into a nearby room. Appleby had no time to voice a protest. McGillicuddy was gone but a minute, then stepped back into the hallway and gestured for Appleby to enter the room. Stepping into it, he was taken aback. There was a young woman, perhaps a year older than Cassius, about seventeen, and stark naked. Utterly unused to such scrutiny, she held her arm over her breasts and one hand over her pubic triangle, looking down and to one side, her coffee and cream skin a match for her brother except for the red flush that a blush had laid over it. Nevetheless, Appleby was struck by her beauty, an attraction he had not thought he would feel again after his experiences of the last few days. "What is your name?" he asked distractedly.

"Portia, sir," said McGillicuddy, answering for her, "likewise a mulatto, brought in last night, but seventeen years old sir, and" poking Appleby in his vest with a filthy finger, "very ripe sir, yas, very ripe indeed."

Appleby turned on his heel and went into the hallway, then the few steps into McGillicuddy's office. The slave trader waddled as fast as he could to follow. Wheeling about, Appleby asked, "How much for the two?" A few moments of arguing followed, ending in the naming of a final price. "I shall go bankrupt, sir, I shall!" said McGillicuddy, who nevertheless seemed pleased with the quick sale.

"Look here, sir, I hope to be able to take them, but I must make arrangements and, uh, consult my associates first," said Appleby. "Let me put a deposit on them and I shall return tomorrow either to take them away or reclaim the deposit." This was agreeable to McGillicuddy, and papers were drawn up and signed immediately. Plucking at Appleby's elbow, he showed his customer to the door. Just before he stepped down to the street, however, Appleby turned back to McGillicuddy.

"I want nobody examining them any longer until I return," he said. "I want them clothed and fed," and he cast a fierce look at the slave trader. Taken aback and a bit cowed, the portly man readily agreed. The bargain was concluded, and Appleby hastened into the street, a bit late for his rendezvous with Troy and Priam. Again, he thought he saw someone who looked a bit like Priam slip out of sight into an alley two blocks away, but there were so many Africans in Charleston that he gave it no more thought.

Troy greeted his master warmly at the boat. Priam was cordial but a bit distant. The boat was heavy with all the goods stowed upon it, and the men had all they could do to manage it in the brisk wind that picked up off the sea. Troy was in his usual good spirits, but he could sense that both his father and master were lost in thought, so it was a quiet trip back.

Once the boat had docked at the pier on the island, Appleby ran ahead to gather more help and the donkey cart, while Troy and Priam remained to unload the boat and carry the stores up the stone steps. It took over an hour for all the males of the island to transport the goods and store them in the barns and sheds of the plantation, but Appleby was glad to be able to help more in the work of the plantation. And after his sometimes harrowing experience in town, he felt he had come home again.

The goods stored and the donkey put to pasture, Appleby gathered up the packet of papers given to him by Smith and approached Priam. He asked him to gather all the people of the plantation who could come to the library of the main house. A dark cloud passed over Priam's face, but he curtly agreed and set about his task. A few minutes later, Appleby sat in the library as his slaves filed in singly and in groups. Hector came first and gave his master a quick, dignified hug. He seemed not perturbed at all when the twins came bouncing into the room and gave the same treatment. Troy came in with Athena, looking much recovered from her delivery and with a quiet newborn wrapped in a blanket. Finally, Priam, Cass, Helen, and Juno entered. Appleby rose to speak.

"People of Seaward, I have here some papers of special interest to you. You know that I have had no experience of slaves or slavery, nor of running a plantation in my life, and so I formed in my mind a decision even before I set out on my journey here. My experiences with you all have but confirmed that decision." He gathered breath to go on, but Priam stood up quickly. A powerful emotion worked on his strong, dark face. Without a note of hope in his voice, he nevertheless spoke out.

"Don't sell us, master. Please, sir. I know you went to the lawyer and then the slave sellers today, master. Seaward is all any of us know. It is our home. Please sir…." and his voice trailed off, his head hanging.

The room sat in stunned silence. Hector, standing nearest Appleby, reached out and touched his sleeve. "Master?!" he asked in a voice of incredulity. Pan and Bacchus sat stunned, their high spirits dashed, Pan shaking his head vigorously and Bacchus mouthing "no, no, no." Troy had a shocked, blank look on his face. Cass and Juno looked away, Juno covering her face. Only Helen, standing near Athena, waited with a watchful, observant look in her eye, and Athena… Athena looked directly at her master, a radiant smile on her face, her understanding having pierced to the core of his intentions.

Appleby himself stood speechless for a moment, looking around the room in shock. "Sell you? Sell you!?"

He sat down hard on a chair and pulled out a handkerchief to mop the sweat that suddenly stood out on his brow. Memories of the sorry houses of the slave traders flooded back to him, as well as his own disgraceful behavior in that place. How Pan and Bacchus and Hector and Troy and Helen and the others might be treated in such a place… He found voice again and stood back up.

"As of one o'clock this afternoon, you were all free. Here are the papers from the attorney, one for each of you – yes, one for the baby, name to be filled in later." Athena, radiant, nodded in satisfaction, her intuition verified. The people of Seaward looked around the room at each other in disbelief. Slowly, disbelief turned to comprehension and sorrow turned to smiles. Frozen bodies began to move slowly… with three exceptions. With a great, shared whoop, Pan and Bacchus rushed the white man, knocking him back into the chair and nearly smothering him with hugs. Hector completed the job – with tears running down his dark brown cheeks he piled onto Appleby. The whole room broke out into a commotion, everyone talking, wondering, clapping. Struggling out of the knot of boys, Appleby untied the packet and with great ceremony handed to each person, from Priam down to the squirming infant, a notarized official document proclaiming their freedom. The copies, also notarized, he put into a safe in the library where they could be kept out of harm's way in case they should ever be needed. Priam looked at his paper, read it carefully, then standing very erect and with great dignity walked over to Appleby and shook his hand, moisture glinting in the corner of his eye.

As soon as he could regain the floor, Appleby called for silence, then resumed his speech.

"We must all think about what to do about this, however. You have several options, as I see it. First, I must tell you that I will give all of you one year's wages. It is not adequate recompense for the years you have worked unpaid, but it is what I can afford. Second, if any of you want to be returned to Africa, I have been in communication with a charitable group in the North that returns former slaves to Africa, to the colony of Liberia." Blank looks went all around the room; he might as well have proposed returning them to Mars. He continued. "If any of you simply wish to leave Seaward, you may do so with my blessing although," and here he looked all around with a smile, "I should miss you terribly. Finally, if you wish to stay here, I will pay each of you a fair wage. Now, I do not want to bias your decision, but here is how I see it: Life is very hard for black people ashore. Legal freedom does not go very far, and can easily be lost. I am afraid that the question of slaves and slavery in the States is heading for a very dark and unhappy period. I think," he said, "that you would be better off to stay on Seaward. But I leave it to you. I am going to walk outside now for a period and let you talk among yourselves to set your own courses of action." And with that he left the group, which looked around at each other thoughtfully.

Sitting on the verandah in the approaching twilight, Appleby could hear animated voices in the library discussing what was a momentous, even life or death decision. After some time he heard the door to the verandah open and Helen stepped out, smiling at him. "Come," she said, taking his hand in her small, dark brown one. He followed her in to the library.

Priam had been elected to speak for all. "Master Mark," he began, and when Appleby started to protest the salutation, Priam continued, "Master Mark, thank you. How can we say that enough? You have done what is right, and perhaps that is reward enough." Here the white man nodded vigorously. "As for your generous suggestions: First, we are all in agreement as to what to do. Second, we all wish to stay here," and at that moment a thunderous roar of applause, whoops, shouts, and laughter erupted in the room, Appleby's not the least among them. "Third, about money… we will take your offer for a year's wages, and fair wages in the future, but… what would we do with it? We cannot go into Charleston and easily buy things. We have decided to ask you if you would invest it for us. I think perhaps you are skilled in doing that?" Appleby agreed eagerly to that financial plan. "And finally, about staying here. We do some reading, you know. I have read that the term 'master' is used in many ways; for instance, it has been used to mean 'leader,' or as a term of respect. That is how we wish to use it toward you… Master Mark." Appleby could not speak, but only nodded, his eyes welling up. Priam became more serious then. "There is another reason for you to appear to be our master, and for us to appear to be your slaves, sir. If people ashore discovered we were all free… if they discovered how we live here…" and he looked at the boys, then at Appleby, then at Athena and her child and at Troy and Hector; it was clear there were few secrets here, and that everyone understood his implications. "If people thought we were other than an ordinary plantation, with slaves and a master, I think our way of life would end here quickly. We are happy living the way we have been, Master Mark," he said, with an emphasis on 'Master.' He continued, "let us all continue to live in that same way. To the world you are still are master, and we are still your slaves." Heads nodded and voices murmured agreement all around the room.

Appleby rose. "We are agreed, and we are as one." A mighty shout went up from all. "Now, he said, "who will help me to bring up wine from the cellar? Who will bring out the best fruits, cook meats, prepare bread? Who will make music? I think this calls for a celebration." Everyone rose up at once and began bustling here and there, making ready for a feast. Smiles broke out all around, and everyone addressed Appleby as 'Master Mark' even more pointedly than before, and surely more joyously. Indeed, it felt very little different at all. Passing in the hallway, Troy stopped him with a quick, bone crunching hug and brushed his neck and ear with his lips. The twins grabbed him around the middle several times, achieving a quick hump before he shooed them off, laughing. Hector and Helen quietly embraced him as he came by them, expressing their feelings in lingering hugs.

Soon a feast was set out on the dining room table, which everyone partook of on the rocking chairs and steps of the verandah. Priam produced a strange instrument of African origin that Appleby believed he had seen described as a 'banjo,' and played tunes on it while the company danced on the lawn. Nobody made any comment when Appleby danced with Troy, Hector, or the twins, and they thought it gracious of him to give young Helen a few twirls and a peck on the lips, little knowing of their intimacy the day before.

As the party began to die down, Appleby called together Priam, Cass, Juno, and Troy for a conference. He explained the dire plight of the slaves Cassius and Portia, still at the slave trader's in Charleston.

"We might have reasons to bring them here beyond my own guilt," he said, not listing his lust for the boy Cassius as one of them. "There are but two families here, besides myself. We have three boys who may one day want a mate, and there are few options on the island. Although," he said, looking worried, "what Cassius, the sixteen year old boy, would do here I don't know. There is also the question of how many more people Seaward can support."

The group thought about the questions, talking softly among themselves. It was Troy who went right to the heart of the most ticklish issue: "Master, we don't have to match up all even, men and women. We can share. It's what we do on Seaward. Anyway," and here he looked to one side and a darker blush seemed to crawl over the dark skin of his handsome face, "some don't want to pair up like that."

There was a general nodding and agreement on that point, which surprised Appleby; the openness of Seaward was more widely shared than he had thought. What a place of natural freedom! What other freedoms, he wondered, have they enjoyed here, what other licenses with one another in the cabins and woods? Priam spoke up: "Master Mark, Seaward can support more people, especially if we can buy supplies and store them. You bought a lot today, master!" he chuckled. And in the end, it was Mama Juno who spoke the deciding opinion: "If your heart was moved to bring those two youngsters here, you should do it, Master Mark. We'll find room for them. Go with your heart."

There was general agreement all around, and agreement that it was time to clean up and go to bed. Many hands made light work. Priam, Troy, and Appleby decided that they would return to Charleston in the boat the very next morning, to bring back the mulatto slaves Cassius and Portia. All but one of the people returned to the cabins, and the house lights were turned down low. As they did the night before, before so many changes, Troy and Appleby sat rocking on the porch, enjoying small snifters of the Napoleon brandy. This time it was Troy's turn to rise and extend his hand to his master.

"Bed, Master Mark?" he asked.

"You know, Troy… I'm not legally your master. You're not legally my slave. You are not compelled to do this." Appleby felt he had to say it, but he also felt sure of the response.

"Master Mark, sir… I wasn't really forced to do it before. None of us were. Nobody did anything with you because you owned us… master." His dark face flashed a brilliant white grin in the night. "You were just the prettiest naked white man any of us had ever seen." Both men guffawed at that, and Appleby rose to embrace the black man tightly. "And anyway," he said, tightening his grip on the white man's hand and tugging toward the door, "you are my master, and I am your slave, if not legally then deep in my heart."

Chapter seven

"You're his master, you make him stop," whispered the slave – or former slave? – it was hard to tell after yesterday's events. Troy tried a kick of his own, which was also useless.

"You're his brother, you do it," said Appleby, who then grabbed a pillow and, without aiming, heaved it powerfully toward the foot of their bed. He scored a hit, but the result was only a chuckle from that general direction. The black man and the white man groaned and opened their eyes, looking at each other from the distance it takes to rub noses – which is what they had been doing as they awoke. A voice spoke from the end of the bed.

"You two better get up. The tide changes in two hours and you're going back to Charleston… Get up!" The owner of the voice, Troy's fourteen year old brother Hector, reached back under the end of the sheets to tickle the tan soles of his brother's feet and the pink soles of his master's feet, as he had been doing. Balanced between amusement and annoyance, Troy and his master looked at one another and an understanding passed wordlessly between them. They then spoke:

"Should we?"

"Let's."

Both powerful men heaved up off the bed like jacks in the box and craned toward the foot of the bed, each grabbing a muscular arm of Hector. The boy was quick and athletic, but not quick enough to escape – or perhaps he didn't care to. The naked men pulled the boy forward into the bed with them and proceeded to undress the black teen, despite the fact that he was wriggling and squirming, putting up a mock fight. Appleby suspected that Hector made just the right twist and turn to assist in his disrobing – at any rate, Appleby sat on his legs while Troy pulled off his shirt, then Troy spread his naked torso on top of his brother's while his master pulled off the boy's trousers and loincloth. Hector interspersed faux-serious cries of "No, no!" with peals of laughter. Completely disrobed, he was then tickled by his brother and master, their fingers gouging into his ribs and under his arms, dusting the tan soles of his feet, while he twisted and howled with laughter.

Slowly, tickling gave way to gentler caresses and affectionate rubbing, as the boy's giggles subsided. Troy's chest was heaved across his brother's own chest, and his fingers changed from tickles to tracing figure eights around his brother's prune-dark nipples, running through the dark patches of wiry hair under his arms, down his side and around his navel. Appleby was lying in the other direction, one arm around the black boy's legs while the other had tickled his feet, but with a slight change of position the white man brought his head closer to the fourteen year old's long, thick penis. Appleby pulled gently at the wiry tufts of pubic hair in that area and held the hefty ballsack in his hand. Quickly, the ink black penis began to stiffen, a reddish brown head peeking out from the hood of skin that had covered it.

Hector gave a soft groan of pleasure, and sighed, then became quiet as his mouth was covered by his brother's mouth, two sets of large, maroon-brown lips sucking moistly at each other, tongues meeting. At his other end, Appleby pulled back the loose foreskin of the black boy's penis, revealing the reddish brown inner skin and glans. Pumping the thick shaft slowly, Appleby licked the sensitive head and inner foreskin of the boy, tonguing the thin slip of skin beneath the head, then taking the head into his mouth and sucking it, bending it downward with his lips, gnawing it with his lips. Appleby felt his own penis being held and looking down quickly saw that Hector had grasped it with his fingers and was pumping it, running his tan palms up and down the reddening shaft of the white man. Troy likewise felt his brother's other hand searching, sliding along the sheets, until it found his thick black staff, a little larger than Hector's own, and the boy began fondling his brother.

Breathing became heavier, hips pushed black and white rods into willing hands and mouths, the two men and the boy shifted and rolled into different positions to suck and be sucked, to stroke and be stroked. The moment had come, and Appleby rose from the bed and went to the bedside table. He unscrewed the jar of clean petroleum jelly, one of many he had purchased at the apothecary's in Charleston the day before – no more soap! – and applied it liberally to his stiff rod that jutted straight out in front of him. Troy rolled off of his brother and the two blacks lay side by side, panting, eagerly anticipating what the white man had planned.

His dick all slicked up with the petroleum jelly, Appleby got a wad of it on two fingers and replaced the jar on the table. Crawling back onto the bed, he lifted Hector's legs. The adolescent black boy knew what was wanted, and raised his legs in the air, knees bent. Lying close beside him was his brother, rubbing the boy's nipples and observing the preparations. Appleby smeared the greasy jelly around and then into the boy's puckered brown asshole, pushing farther in, working one and then two fingers in and out. When the boy's gasps turned to moans of pleasure, Appleby knew the hole had loosened. Getting into position, Appleby put the head of his pink and red dick to the boy's asshole and pushed. Hector cried out softly, but in pleasure not pain, for not only was he prepared but he craved the feeling of the white man's penis inside of him.

Appleby pushed all the way in, paused to let the boy catch his breath, then began moving in and out slowly. The white man stretched his legs straight back and supported his torso on his palms, holding his chest and muscular belly up off of the black teen. The boy folded his legs around his master's back, crossing ankles. Appleby and the boy locked eyes, reading each other's thoughts, in as close an intimacy as two people can have. Then suddenly Appleby's field of vision turned to a dark chocolate brown. Troy had swung himself into position to push his own massive penis into his brother's mouth. Hector now lay on his back, being fucked mouth and butt by his brother and his white master. All his attention was concentrated into servicing these two men he loved. Troy's legs were angled back and to the side of Appleby's arms which still held the white man arched up over the struggling black flesh beneath him. The black man pulled himself up with his hands on the headboard of the four poster bed, his torso swaying above his brother's head.

Now, below and in front of Appleby's face was Troy's hard-muscled, high, tight bottom, pumping a massive penis in and out of the black teen's face for all it was worth. Appleby could see the thick butt muscles working, shifting the countour of the butt with each push, rolling the muscle mass up toward the base of the spine then down, up then down, dimples forming in the sides of each buttock as Troy pumped. Appleby could smell the honest ass-smell, and saw little rivulets of sweat run down his ass crack, down the valley of his spine between two hard, long hills of back muscle. Looking up, Appleby could see Troy's back curved up as the black man held onto the headboard and pumped into his brother as hard as he could. From below the white man and the black man came a mixture of gagging, gurgling, moaning, and heavy breathing from the well-fucked black teen.

Appleby came first, all in one long push. Sensing its approach, he pistoned in and out of the black teen's ass, then pushed forward and held his groin tight against the boy's butt, straining and pushing to expel every drop of white semen he could into the young black's bottom. His head was inches away from Troy's working ass, and in his ecstasy Appleby lowered his head and bit the black man's dark cocoa butt, then bit it again, hard. The pain was the extra bit of sensation it took to put Troy over the edge. He gasped loudly, bucked and pushed, bucked and pushed, filling his brother's mouth with his semen.

Appleby pulled his dick out of the black teen's ass, making a sucking sound, and rocked back on his knees and toes, watching Troy come into his brother's mouth. Hector's swollen, purple black penis sprung up at attention with his master's weight off of it. With a sudden inspiration, Appleby reached for the pot of petroleum lubricant and began smearing it on Hector's penis. Troy, his powerful thighs quivering, had just reached the end of his own orgasm. He grunted in surprise when his white master shoved some petroleum jelly into his own hole with a finger. Appleby put one hand around Troy's hips and pulled gently back, positioning Hector's dick with his other hand. In one movement, Troy was impaled on his brother's dick, as his own dick came out of the boy's mouth.

Quickly understanding what was happening, Troy began bouncing up and down on Hector's rampant cock. Hector was beside himself, still trying to swallow the outpouring from his brother at the same time that he was in ecstasy from the insertion of his dick into his brother's ass. Appleby now had both hands around Troy's meaty buttocks and was helping to lift them up and down, up and down. It did not take long. Hector cried out incoherently as his groin pushed upward, his chest curling up off the bed at the same time. Troy bounced five more times and settled hard on his brother's groin. Hector strained upwards once more, then collapsed back down onto the bed.

Troy rolled forward and off of his brother to the left, still breathing heavily. Appleby dove forward to the right, on the other side of the gasping black teen. The three lay there together, catching breath, arms and legs entwined, speaking soft words of happiness. When Hector finally said, "You two really have to get up now," both his brother and master pummeled him with pillows and all three laughed heartily. But it was true, it was time to rise.

While Hector pumped and heated water for baths, Troy and Appleby donned trousers and shirts and quickly ran barefoot to the outhouse where they shared a companionable shit, the last of Hector's semen dribbling out of Troy's ass as well, down into the mess below. Returning to the bath room, all three washed. The two blacks brought out food for a quick breakfast while Appleby put on his 'civilized' best for the second day in a row, for the trip into Charleston.

The three were finishing their hurried meal when Mama Juno came in through the pantry door, followed by her irrepressible thirteen year old twins, Pan and Bacchus.

"Mama says we can move back into the big house, master!" said Bacchus, "because she needs the loft for this girl you're bringing back from Charleston," continued Pan, his tone of voice making it clear he did not approve of the latter part of the plan. "…and Mama Juno says Athena and the baby – when are you naming the baby, Troy? – are doing so well that Troy and Hector can move back in there," said Bacchus, "so we want to know, where does this new boy go?" concluded Pan. Mama Juno smiled indulgently at her boys and did not, needed not, say a word.

Appleby felt a wave of mixed emotions wash over him; he had so enjoyed the intimate times he had shared with Troy just across the hall. But he understood that Hector and Troy might wish to be near their daughter and help in her care, plus there was the matter of the delicious new boy, Cassius. The solution seemed clear: "Cassius can go into the room Troy has been in," he said.

"Right across from us?" asked Pan, unsure whether he approved of this. Bacchus dug him in the ribs and nodded silently, conspiratorially. "Oh – alright!" said the caramel brown boy, seeing possibilities afresh. Appleby asked the twins to make the house ready for its guests and to help in moving bedding and belongings around while he and the men were away. Everyone agreed and hurried off to their work. Walking down to the pier next to Troy, Appleby nevertheless felt a wave of regret at the changing arrangements once more. Sensing his master's feelings, Troy put an arm around the white man's broad shoulders.

"Master, don't feel sad, it will be alright. When one door shuts, another opens." Appleby smiled at the home truth. "And anyway, Athena won't feel like doing… anything… for a while yet, so Hector and I will be back," continued Troy, winking slyly at the white man. "And even when she does feel stronger, remember… we share at Seaward. You might want to join us, our bed is strongly built, even for four, master!" he said with a huge grin. Appleby didn't know whether to blush at the scandalous suggestion or demand its immediate implementation. At any rate, by the time the men reached the boat, where Priam was waiting, he felt better about the new arrangements.

Although not really dangerous, the weather was a little unsettled, the water choppier than Appleby had experienced it yet. Priam and Troy assured him that they had handled much worse, so he trusted in their skill although he by no means enjoyed the bouncing, rolling voyage into Charleston. Securing the boat to the pier, the men walked ashore, Appleby in the lead.

The slave trader's business did not open until one, so the morning was spent with Appleby setting in motion some plans necessitated by the secret freeing of his slaves yesterday. He spent some time in a bank and in a stockbroker's office, preparing and signing papers for the transfer of funds and creation of a trust, and for a clever scheme of financial investment, all on behalf of the people of Seaward. The clerks with whom he worked were frankly befuddled by the complex arrangements he set in motion, but they complied, sending telegrams and letters here and there, as Appleby whispered to himself, "Don't try to outfox a Yankee lawyer!" Priam and Troy spent that time surreptitiously window shopping in the streets, imagining what they would buy with their newfound wealth if they could do so without bringing down the wrath of Charleston upon everyone's head – which would surely happen. Business concluded, the men sadly repeated the strategy of the day before, in which Appleby bought parcels of food for the men to eat back at the boat while he had to eat apart – and he cursed the absurdity of such an arrangement even more since yesterday's events.

It was agreed that Troy would return to accompany his master to the slave dealer's, and the two were waiting on the sidewalk when the doors opened at one o'clock and the repulsive McGillicuddy, in clothes he must have slept in, sporting more egg than tie on his shirt front, lumbered onto his front stoop.

"Yas, yas, Mister Appleby I think? Quite right, yas, so glad you decided to come and consummate the transaction. What's this I see, something in trade?" he said, peering around Appleby to look at Troy. The young black man carefully kept his eyes averted but shrank back. Appleby was glad that he did not carry a walking stick, for at that moment he might have struck McGillicuddy with it. Composing himself, remember his higher purpose, he said, "No, Mr. McGillicuddy, this is my servant. He will wait right here," and Appleby looked meaningfully at Troy as he said this, "while I claim my two new servants from your establishment. And, of course, pay you the balance."

This last mention of further payment motivated McGillicuddy. Ushering Appleby in, he showed him to his private office and received the remainder owed on Cassius and Portia, then hurried down the hall, vowing not to take long. Long moments passed before McGillicuddy brought the sixteen year old Cassius into the office, holding him tightly by the arm. Cassius was dressed in a plain, even ragged shirt and rough trousers, with battered shoes. Appleby wondered whether the boy had arrived at McGillicuddy's with finer clothes that had then been taken from him. In his hand he clutched a small cloth parcel containing all the worldly belongings that remained to him. Cassius looked dazed and confused as he entered the room. Seeing Appleby, a look of recognition crossed his face, then he cast his eyes downward.

"Boy, here's your new master," said McGillicuddy abruptly, "I shall return!" he declared and slipped back out the hallway.

Glancing sideways at the slave trader's departing figure, Cassius spoke in an urgent whisper, deep set hazel eyes looking intently at Appleby through long, curling eyelashes. "Master! Am I really to be your servant, sir?"

"Yes, Cassius," replied Appleby kindly, thinking that the complicated relationships of Seaward could be explained later.

"I did not know," said the boy, in wonder, "I was alone in a room all night, I couldn't sleep, nobody told…" then he hurried on to the main point of urgency. "Master," he said, a note of hope balanced with a certainty of despair, "my sister, please master – "

Appleby held up one hand to cut him off and with the other gently touched the boy's ragged sleeve: "She is coming, too."

The mixture of hope, joy, disbelief, and exhaustion from the night's ordeal that crossed the boy's face was indescribable. "Do you mean to say," asked Appleby, "that he," indicating the general direction of McGillicuddy, "left you to sit all night without telling you what would become of you or your sister?" The boy nodded, lowering his head. Once again, Appleby was glad for his lack of a walking stick, which he would surely have broken across the fat face of McGillicuddy. That porcine villain could be heard returning in the hallway.

He ushered Portia, Cassius's seventeen year old sister, into the room. Appleby was sure McGillicuddy had his hand on her bottom, and gave her a slight push. The girl was also dressed practically in rags, with a small, sad cloth bundle of her possessions in her hand. "This is your new master," McGillicuddy said to her. Portia had not really seen Appleby well the previous day, hanging her head in shame at her own nakedness, so she looked quickly, furtively at the strange white man before her. Then joy and amazement spread over her face as she saw her brother. She stepped toward him but a quick warning glance from Cassius made her stop. She stood with head bowed, tears beginning to trickle down her coffee and cream cheeks.

Wasting no time, Appleby shook the plump, sticky hand of the slave trader and walked toward the door, wiping his own hand surreptitiously on his coat. His new slaves followed, fearful and as if in a dream but overjoyed to be together in whatever difficulties lay ahead. Appleby stepped onto the stoop and down into the street, Troy taking a step back at the fierce look of rage on his master's face. Composing himself, Appleby turned once more to salute McGillicuddy, who stood swaying in his doorway. Then quickly, with no introductions, Appleby led the way down the block, his face clouded with anger once more. Portia and Cassius, hurrying, stumbling, followed as best they could, Portia beginning to sob, Cassius grasping her hand tightly. Troy brought up the rear. Turning the corner and heading toward the port, Appleby stopped at the entrance to an empty alley, partially concealed with a stack of wooden crates. Wheeling around, his anger was softened with an expression of kindness as he gripped Cassius by the arm, Portia clutching her brother's other hand, and guided them into the alley.

"Comfort your sister," he whispered to Cassius fiercely, then he and Troy closed ranks at the entrance to the alley, Appleby glowering ferociously at passers-by, as Portia's sobs broke out in earnest, punctuated by Cassius's soothing voice. Tears gave way to relief, and the brother and sister spoke quickly in hushed whispers. Finally, Appleby felt a slight tug on his coat sleeve.

"Thank, you master… thank you. We are ready," said Cassius, head bowed but smiling. Portia likewise kept her head bowed by was determined to survey her new master through her long, curling eyelashes, to see what manner of household would be their fate.

"This is Troy," said Appleby, indicating the young man, and then, "we will explain everything soon." He led the little procession again down the street and soon they reached the pier. Troy jumped ahead, down into the boat, and held out his hand to help his new comrades board. They both hesitated, and expressions of fear crept on their faces.

"We… we have never been on the water," said Cassius in a husky whisper.

"It is important you be on the water now," returned Troy. "Please come aboard," he said, having caught his master's eagerness to take the two away from this dreadful place. With Appleby encouraging them gently from behind, the two plucked up their courage and stepped onto the boat. Priam was introduced, and the craft put out to sea as soon as possible.

Appleby had hoped to use the short journey back to Seaward to explain matters to his new slaves, but the water remained choppy. Sitting in the middle of the boat, where Appleby first sat on arriving in Charleston, Cassius and Portia were in the most comfortable spot possible, but they still clutched each other and any wooden upright they could find, mute with terror, as the boat pitched and yawed in the choppy water. Troy and Priam busied themselves with guiding the craft expertly. When not thinking of their own terror, brother and sister had occasion to wonder at the strangeness of a white man who would sit on a coil of rope on the deck while they took the most comfortable seat, but then the boat would lean and their thoughts returned to what they were sure was their own immediate peril.

If Appleby did not talk, he could see. His groin stirred looking at Cassius, the boy's mop of thick, jet black curls glistening in the salt spray. Each time he spoke to his sister, the thick, full lips of his heart shaped mouth parted invitingly. Even looking in fear at the ocean, the boy's beautiful hazel eyes peered beneath deep brows, through long, curling eyelashes. Through rips and holes in his ragged clothing, Appleby could see patches of the flawless coffee and cream skin he had observed before, which led to fantasies of what lay beneath the white undergarment the boy had worn but not removed… yet. Portia, his sister, had the same complexion and build, slim but muscular, with full, high breasts straining the ill-fitting, wretched garment she wore. Where her brother's face was a rounded oval, hers was more circular and smaller. Where his hair was black and curling, hers was medium brown and frizzy, pulled close to her head now by the scarf she wore knotted under her neck. Brother and sister looked like angels out of a Renaissance fresco, or marble statues, brought to life and colored cafe-au-lait. Appleby had time to think about himself and his own reactions, for the girl Portia stirred in him feelings that he had begun to think over the last week were no longer in him.

The boat was finally brought to the pier at Seaward. Appleby leaped out to help Troy lash the craft to the uprights, then he extended a hand to help the new arrivals come onto the boards, Portia first. She took a quick look at the white hand, then a quicker, startled look at her master. Behind her, Cassius looked perplexed and wary, not sure what this gesture meant from a white man. From behind, he helped lift his sister out of the boat, while she turned her head quickly, pretending not to see Appleby's hand, and clambered out as best she could. Appleby observed all this, not in anger or disappointment but in curiosity. His curiosity quickly changed to astonishment, for once upon the wood planks of the pier, Cassius dropped to his knees and grabbed Appleby's hand, with Portia kneeling down just behind him.

"Master, thank you, sir, for keeping us together. We will work hard, master, we are willing and eager. You won't have to whip us at all, we learn quickly and have always obeyed our masters in all thing." And then Cassius kissed Appleby's hand and let it drop gently.

Appleby felt a thrill at this first experience of touching Cassius, at the feel of his full, soft lips on his hand, but the boy's cringing subservience distressed him. He understood that the brother and sister might be grateful for keeping them together, but the mention of whipping was shocking. Again he thought of how different life for mainland slaves must be. "Please, rise, I know you are tired, you must rest and then… then we will tell you all about Seaward Plantation." When Cassius and Portia stood up they kept their heads bowed, walking several steps behind Appleby. He turned to Priam and whispered, "Should you talk to them? We need to let them know about how we do things here."

"Give them time, Master Mark, they come from a very different world," replied Priam, with a reassuring smile. There was no time for further discussion, as they had reached the end of the pier where a small crowd was forming.

The people of Seaward had been alerted by Helen, who had seen the boat approaching from the island. They had all, except for Athena and the baby, run down to the pier and were there to welcome the new arrivals. Introductions were made all around. Appleby led a procession up the steps, across woods and meadow and into the big house. At every step, Cassius and Portia looked around in wonder and apprehension, unsure of what awaited them in their new home. Juno and Cass fussed about them, tsk-tsking at the state of their clothes, making plans for new garments, asking the new arrivals where they came from, how life was there, and so on. Hector and the twins, in the guise of helping the newcombers, surreptitiously touched Cassius's black curls and Portia's frizzy cloud, both new in their experience. If Seaward were a brave new world for Cassius and Portia, the two seemed like visitors from the moon to the people of the plantation.

Arriving at the house, Cass and Juno brought food over immediately from the kitchen, as the dinner hour was approaching and the new arrivals had eaten little during their ordeal at McGillicuddy's. Hector took the newcomers to the bath room to wash their hands and faces while Pan and Bacchus helped the older women lay out food and drink in the dining room. Athena and her baby arrived to stare at the new arrivals. But when all was prepared and Cassius and Portia were shown to the dining room, they drew back as if they were being shown a snake. They looked around with real surprise at their white master helping himself to food with his slaves; could it be that he intended to eat with them as well?

"Master, we can't eat here, it is not our place," said Portia, and Cassius turned to Priam and pleaded, "please, can't we just have something in the kitchen or the quarters?" In answer Priam picked up a plate and began serving Portia, asking her preferences, which seemed to confuse her all the more. Appleby picked up a plate and handed it to Cassius, saying, "Please, help yourself, this is your new home." He put a hand around the boy's neck and muscular shoulder and felt a racing heart in the artery there. Cassius thanked the white man, then hesitantly approached the table. Appleby could not resist coming along with him a step or two, for it allowed him to keep his hand on the boy's neck, which he rubbed, slipping his fingers just beneath the torn shirt collar to feel the warm, light brown flesh beneath. At first Cassius picked here and there at the food, but his hunger after a day at McGillicuddy's got the better of him and he loaded his plate. Portia, seeing her brother loosen up a bit, followed his example. Shown to rocking chairs on the porch, the two ate their fill in the company of the other blacks as well as their white master.

At the end of the meal, Cassius whispered something to Portia, then both rose and approached Appleby, kneeling again. "Master, what work will we do? Portia is a skilled seamstress and has some ability with medicines and healing herbs. I know carpentry and can also serve at table in the house, and we can both – "

Appleby interrupted the boy. "Yes, this is all good, Cassius, and thank you Portia. At Seaward we all do what needs to be done. But thank you for the gift of these skills. We will show you the plantation tomorrow; the sun is setting and I know the two of you are tired. Juno…" he winked at the older woman and gestured at Portia. Mama Juno came over and gently helped the girl up, saying "Come with me girl, you will stay in a loft in my cabin. We need to let you wash up, and I have some of Athena's old clothes that are still in better condition than what you have, until we can make you new ones." Looking around uncertainly, Portia seemed to be making a decision as to whether to trust these people. Then suddenly she smiled shyly and nodded at Juno, collected her cloth package of belongings quickly and prepared to follow. Cassius leaped up quickly as if to accompany them but Portia stopped him with a gentle hand, whispering in his ear and planting a sisterly kiss on his cheek. Off they went to Juno's cabin. Most of the rest of the company dispersed, Athena, Hector and Troy to return to their cabin for the first time together since the baby was born, Priam and Mama Cass to theirs with Helen.

Appleby juggled several powerful feelings as the party broke up and bedtime inevitably approached. Something needed to be done to show Cassius the easy, open, and accepting ways of Seaward. After a day of observing the new slave boy, Appleby's desire to do more than look was growing stronger. But there were also the twin boys, Pan and Bacchus, who would be returning to his room – and to his bed? – that evening. Thinking quickly, he took Pan and Bacchus into a corner as the rest of the company was departing and proposed some plans and strategies to them, which they eagerly accepted.

Cassius collected his cloth bundle, asking Appleby, "Master, can they show me where I am to stay?" indicating Pan and Bacchus. A quick, sly grin flashed on the faces of both boys. "You will stay here in the house," said Appleby. "Thank you, master," replied Cassius, and then to Pan and Bacchus, "Will you show me the servants' quarters?"

Winking at the twins, Appleby interjected, "You will just sleep upstairs, Cassius. But first, we will let you bathe and clean yourself from the filth of McGillicuddy's house." The boy frowned in confusion at the reference to 'upstairs,' not imagining that he would lodge anywhere but in a rough slave quarters someplace – perhaps upstairs meant in the attic, he concluded. But his confusion gave way to a quick smile of understanding and agreement at the reference to the slave trader's squalid premises. Bacchus took the boy's cloth bundle and said, "I'll take this up to your room and prepare a bath for you!" Pan took Cassius by the hand and whispered an offer to show him to the outhouse, which the newcomer accepted. Appleby knew that on the way there, as part of their strategy, Pan would begin to sow the seeds of understanding in Cassius that Seaward was different, and that Master Mark was very much different, from anything Cassius had experienced before.

Of course, Appleby had thought about this moment, but the actual approach of the time when he would see Cassius fully naked caused his heart to race. Bacchus, returned from putting Cassius's small bundle away upstairs, showed his master how to pump and heat water for a bath, a chore that Appleby was glad to learn how to do so he could participate more in the work of the plantation. The tub was full and steaming as Pan approached, holding Cassius's hand. Pan favored his master and brother with an enormous wink, while Cassius cast a quick but piercing glance at Appleby, full of a dawning realization as to what kind of place and what manner of master he had encountered.

The plan for Cassius's re-education began to unfold. "You are to bathe, please, Cassius," said Appleby. The boy, used to obeying white masters, agreed and began to disrobe. Pan and Bacchus sprang to his aid, helping him off with the ragged shirt and trousers that he wore. With only a thin loincloth left, Cassius lowered and turned his head in modesty, then quickly removed the garment.

Appleby caught his breath. The beauty of the sixteen year old's marble-sculpted arms and legs, muscled, boxy chest and abdomen of smooth flowing muscles was repeated in his loins. His buttocks were perfectly rounded in back but flat sided, a wide shallow dimple in the muscle of each side, the muscles of each hip and buttock pressing tightly inward, the line between each ass cheek tightly compressed. The mop of black, coiling curls he wore on his head became a more relaxed and wavy tangle above his genitals, making a surprisingly thick bush but with no hair any farther down. The light brown, coffee-and-cream complexion was continued on the skin of his loins, flawless without bruise, blemish, pimple, or scar.

Born of a black mother and white father, the boy's African heritage was most apparent in his full lips and heart-shaped mouth, which Appleby had seen, and in the boy's penis and testicles, which were revealed now for the first time. The boy's penis was the same size as Appleby's adult penis, seven inches [18 cm], but of a dark brown color, the rich caramel of Pan and Bacchus's skins. Appleby remembered that the twins likewise had darker cocks of a deep brown, and that Troy and Hector's members were nearly black. Africa always revealed itself in the size and color of the penis, it seemed. Appleby's own penis was darker than the rest of his skin, but not this rich, deep color. Cassius's ballsack, heavy and spreading somewhat but not dangling very far, was likewise a dark caramel brown, and hairless.

Appleby was conscious of a stillness in the room. Coming to his senses, he saw both twins staring in open-mouthed admiration at Cassius, their own trousers beginning to tent out in front. Appleby then became conscious of Cassius himself, who was standing straight, his head somewhat bowed but turned toward his master. Cassius was looking at his master through his long, black eyelashes, seeming to see the white man for the first time, weighing what Pan had told him about the strange and wonderful differences at Seaward. Clearing his throat, Appleby looked pointedly at the twins and nodded slightly toward Cassius, reminding them of their plan.

"Oh, let us help you!" said Bacchus, remembering the strategy. "Yes; I'll scrub your back," said Bacchus, taking Cassius by the arm and helping him into the tub. Gathering soap but no washcloths, the boys began to rub Cassius's broad, muscular back and thick muscular chest with soap. Lathering their fingers, they ran their hands with interest through his mass of thick black curls, exploring a new kind of hair texture different from, perhaps balanced between, their own and their white master's. Their enthusiasm caused a fair bit of splashing of water, not unintentionally.

"Pan, Bacchus, your clothing will be soaked. Take it all off, then you can bathe after Cassius," said Appleby, as if the thought had only just occurred to him.

Quickly, the twins were out of their clothing. Appleby's already swelling penis felt another surge as the boys' deep caramel color over thin, muscular frames, and their peppercorn black hair reminded him of so many moments of passion with them before Troy's brief stay in his bed. Cassius, of course, did not expect this development, but Appleby noted that he, too, looked with interest at the twins, drinking in their doubled delights with his eyes.

"Stand up!" ordered Bacchus, "we need to wash your lower half," said Pan. Somewhat uncertainly, Cassius rose and stood knee deep in the bath water. His beautiful, long dark penis had begun to swell, perhaps from the heat of the bath water and perhaps from the sight and ministrations of the naked brown twins. Did Appleby detect a slightly quicker breathing, a slight movement of the skin and muscles over the boy's heart? He certainly did a moment later, for grabbing up the soap again, Pan began scrubbing the sixteen year old's tight, rounded bottom, while Bacchus nonchalantly grasped the boy's penis with one hand and began soaping the head with the other, cleaning under the long foreskin. Cassius gasped audibly and his penis really did begin to grow then, a light brown head pushing out of the dark brown hood, swelling in thickness. Cassius put out a hand to steady himself, onto the naked shoulder of Bacchus. He grunted as Pan forced his fingers into the hidden valley between his buttocks, working soapy water into the sixteen year old's ass crack.

Appleby had to clear his throat again to remind the twins to move on to the next stage. Holding up a towel in both hands, Appleby invited Cassius to step out of the tub and dry. The light brown boy did so, his swelling penis flopping, and reached out to take the towel from his master. But Appleby held onto it and began toweling down his new mulatto slave himself, gently rubbing and patting the boy dry, as Cassius stood in surprise, never taking his eyes off of his master for a moment. Bringing the towel to the boy's butt, Appleby pushed it into the crack perhaps a bit more than was necessary, and bringing it to the swelling penis he held it there maybe a little longer than was needed to dry it.

All the while, the twins were scrubbing quickly in the tub. Completing their task, they climbed back out. Appleby handed the towel to Cassius now and said, "Would you please help Pan and Bacch to dry?" Hesitantly at first, but slowly warming to the pleasant task, Cassius toweled the boys, their naked bodies inevitably sliding against his, penis unavoidably brushing against penis or bottom. As he finished the task, Cassius looked to his master for more instructions, and was thunderstruck at what he saw.

Appleby had quickly stripped and was standing naked before the three brown boys. Cassius, despite his life on a plantation, had never seen a white man naked, never seen the color of genitals that had sired him more than sixteen years ago. He was captivated by the play of tan, white, and pink on Appleby's muscular body, by the deep rose and purple of his genitals and, unavoidably, by the sight of the swelling cock. Appleby sank into the tub and washed very quickly, since bathing was not really the point of this exercise. The three boys stood in rapt attention all the while. The twins' penises were fully erect. Cassius's erect rod would have been obvious had he not covered it with the towel he held.

Appleby rose from the tub and walked directly toward Cassius. Trained to be of service, and not thinking of the consequences, the boy opened the towel up to receive his master. An enormous erection sprang up from the boy, arching at a forty five degree angle away from his belly. Appleby simply stood before Cassius, who responded reflexively to the unspoken request and began toweling his master. The boy's passion was beginning to overcome his reticence, and as his master had done to him, he paused to linger with the towel over the white man's bottom and swollen member.

Cassius came slowly to the end of his task and stood, towel to one side, and looked directly into his master's eyes from a foot [30 cm] away, his awakened desire warring with his subservient upbringing and his fear of being too bold. The twins stood three feet [90 cm] away, now audibly panting, their members dripping small threads of precum. Appleby, keeping his eyes locked on Cassius's eyes, brushed the towel to the floor, reached out, and pulled the light brown boy into him. Giving way entirely, Cassius wrapped his arms tightly around the white man, gasped "O! Master," and pressed tight against the man's hard body. Appleby reached around to grasp the boy's muscular bottom and pulled him in hard.

The embrace did not last long. Breaking away, Appleby grasped one of Cassius's hands with one of his, and took Bacchus by the other hand. Pan took up Cassius's other hand and the joined procession of white, brown, and light brown man and boys moved quickly into the hallway, up the stairs, and into Appleby's bedroom. All four tumbled on the bed in a tangle of passion, groping and grasping even as they fell.

Appleby was excited to have Pan and Bacchus back in his bed, but the focus of his passion was on Cassius. The thirteen year olds seemed to know that, and for this one night they took on the role of helping the white man and the sixteen year old slave boy to consummate their passion. Certainly, the thick wall of slave experience and shyness that was around Cassius had come tumbling down. Was he also seeing in Master Mark a reminder of his own beloved white master and father? It was no time to analyze such matters. Appleby pushed Cassius to the bed on his back, then stretched out on top of him. Rutting powerfully down into the mulatto slave boy, Appleby's penis and the teen's penis slid easily alongside each other, the close, hot space between their muscled bellies slick with the precum that poured from each. Pan and Bacchus lay on either side, their hands rubbing, kneading, pressing into the locked white and light brown bodies between them, pushing their own erect and slippery cocks into spaces and cavities made of flesh wherever they could find an opening.

From his hesitancies and occasional clumsiness, Appleby had a strong sense that Cassius had had few if any relations with other males before, so he was resolved not to overwhelm the boy this first night – he would delay penetrating the sixteen year old until a later time. The white man pushed off of the slave boy and slid downward, kissing his muscular chest, running his tongue down the shallow valley between smooth belly muscles, tonguing the navel, before ending in the groin. Appleby buried his face and nose in the boy's tangle of black pubic hairs, breathing in the clean boy smell, pushing the youth's thick penis downward with his chin. Then Appleby slipped down another inch or two and swung the boy's penis up, grasping it. The cock was so rigid it had little need to be skinned back farther. Appleby licked the shaft up and down and then swallowed it whole. He felt the youth's muscular body twist, and the boy's hips strained upward. Sucking and pumping for a minute, he then removed the penis from his mouth and turned his attention to the heavy, wide ballsack, dark brown and hairless. Very gently, Appleby took each testicle into his mouth entirely, sucking softly. The boy cried out softly, but only in muffled words, for while their master was occupied with Cassius's lower end, the twins had fallen upon his chest, neck, and face. The twins were sucking the light brown boy's wide nipples, kissing his neck, and Pan had covered the teen's wide heart shaped mouth with his own trumpet lips, two sets of full lips sucking, tonguing.

Appleby returned to the boy's thick brown penis, taking it whole into his mouth, nearly gagging as the thick head touched the back of his throat. Arching his neck so that the top of the cockhead rubbed against the roof of his mouth, the white man began bobbing his head up and down, up and down. Cassius's hips began pumping, thrusting upward in time, his fists were clenched by his side. Suddenly, the boy shook his head free of Pan's mouth and cried out, while he bucked powerfully, thrusting his groin up into his master's face. Large dollops and splatters of sperm erupted from his penis into the white man's mouth, and were hungrily swallowed. Three more times he clenched his ass cheeks tight and pushed the white fluid into the white man's mouth.

As soon as he collapsed flat onto the bed, Appleby slid up the boy's body, gently pushing the twins aside. The white man came to a sitting position on the boy's boxy, muscled chest, knees in each armpit, and gently but insistently pushed his own dripping cock into the mulatto boy's mouth. Cassius had a momentary look of fear in eyes that were glazed from his own climax, but then he hungrily took his master's penis into his mouth. While the twins licked and cleaned the boy's lower torso and genitals from the semen and precum of both boy and master, Appleby grasped Cassius's tangle of black curls, burying his fingers in it, and began pumping back and forth. The white man would have liked to have delayed it, but his passion and pent-up desire for the boy were so great that he soon cried out the boy's name wildly and began pushing, slamming his groin forward into the waiting face before him three or four times.

Master collapsed half on, half off of his sixteen year old slave, while the two brown twins snuggled up close on either side. Cassius clutched his master's head, his fingers entangled in the shoulder length light brown hair, whispering "O! Master, oh master thank you, oh, master" over and over. Tears of release overflowed his hazel eyes and ran down his light brown cheeks, which Appleby gently cleaned away with his tongue.

Exhausted from the events of two days, master and new boy slave drifted off into sleep, joined by the snuggling thirteen year olds on either side. Moonlight from the window moved across the floor and onto the tangle of tanned white, light brown, and caramel brown bodies. Somewhere the shades of a brown woman and a white man looked down and, freed from all conventional morality, smiled. Peace settled in the night on Seaward Plantation.

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