By slaveobjectx

The Collar

But when the ‘blacksmith’ suddenly produced out of his heap of irons a real ancient metal slave collar and tried to put it round my neck, I really resisted. I assure you I was completely freaked out when I saw the big band of heavy steel that they obviously meant me to wear from now on. It seemed huge enough to keep an elephant in check. It was one-and-a-half times as thick as my anklets and bracelets, and some three inches high. I saw that it must have a weight of five or six pounds at least.

I was horrified by the idea that they would fasten it around my neck in the same way as they had done with the cuffs around my ankles and wrists. Because I suddenly sensed that I would have to wear that collar the whole time of my imprisonment here too, I started to shout.

‘Fuck you, you bastards, you can’t do this to me. I’m not a fucking animal! I’m a man! I got rights.’ I really struggled, trying to bite them and kick them as they pinioned my arms but I was one against three and it was hopeless.

When I had exhausted myself, they dragged me across the room and two of them held me over a bench while the third picked up a belt.

‘This is against the law,’ I now cried in panic.

‘To the hell with you, you asshole of a slave,’ the taller warder said. ‘The law! Apparently you still do not understand. The law you think about doesn’t count inside here. Here, we are the law. Because you’re ours from now on. And I’ll tell you, you miserable slave, we’ll teach you to obey and you’ll learn. Yes, you will. You will learn to obey. It might take a short time perhaps, but in the end you will obey.’

He paused for a moment, seemingly half-amused by my feeble efforts to get free and then continued, ‘By the time we’re through with training you, you will grovel at our feet, begging for mercy if the lash is swishing through the air over you, laying weals on your miserable back. For we’ve broken much stronger ones than you before, boy, guys who thought they could endure everything, would never submit to us as our slaves. And look at them now, collared and chained in the heavy fetters we have riveted to their limbs; driven with a bull’s pizzle whip by our best slave-drivers in the pits to chip and carry huge stones continuously, or rowing twelve hours a day on our beautiful galley, chained up to their benches and lashed to the oars. They now slave on our mere commands as if they have done so since birth, and slaving they do! They don’t need any lesson further, they know that there’s no alternative for them than to toil and to toil day after day till the end of their life. Because they have been brought to understand that in this place the choice is either to slave yourself voluntarily or to be forced to slave by us with the whip. Listen to me, boy, we know how to make a slave out of a man like you. No one who fell into our hands ever succeeded in resisting our methods of training and disciplining. At the end they all become miserable slaves, no one excepted, no one! So if you don’t show the appropriate submissiveness immediately, we’ll wipe out of you all that stubbornness with the sharpest lash we have. And we will, I can guarantee that to you, boy, we will.’

I was filled with horror by his words. That, of course, must have been what he intended by uttering them. I felt after what I had already seen that they would stand by that. This was hell. So I was sobbing, ‘Please, please don’t do this. You can’t do that to a man…’ but the other one of the two holding me now hissed in my ear, ‘Shut up you damned little punk. You’re not a man anymore, you have no rights of any kind. You’re just a slave now. Do you hear me? A slave! A fucking slave! Nothing but a slave!’ He raised his voice now. ‘Come on, boy, say it! Let me hear you say it yourself! Let me hear you say what you are.’

I couldn’t get the words out. ‘Well?’ the guy shouted. ‘I’m waiting. I want you to say it. I want to hear it. And I want to hear it immediately. Say, that you’re just a slave, nothing more than a fucking slave. And say it loud and clear, so that everybody here can hear you. You understand? Say it, so that there is no doubt about you knowing your miserable slavish state for the future. Now you know you are a slave so say it, shout it! And I’m listening now!’ He slashed me with his hand against my throat, so that I had to choke a little. ‘Well?,’ he repeated, insistently.

There was no way out for me. ‘Sir, I’m a slave, Sir!’ I said between sobs.

‘Right! Now shout it! Mean it! Shout it out, you fucking slave!’

And suddenly I was shouting, ‘I’m a slave!’ over and over so that I couldn’t stop because I knew it then, knew that I couldn’t resist, that I would indeed become the miserable low cur they already knew me to be. I wass almost hysterical by now but a blow across my face soon shut me up again and I collapsed, whimpering and moaning.

‘Right you are. So behave as a slave. So listen to me, you young idiot. You’re not on holidays here. This isn’t a recreational summer-camp. You’re a grubby street-robber that has to be disciplined by being taught a lesson for life. You’ve committed a crime, for which you have to be punished severely, and you’ve been sent to us to serve your punishment through enslavement. You’re here to fulfil that slavery. By entering inside these fine walls the fulfilment of your duties started, so you are our slave now, no more than our fucking slave, you just stated that yourself. And with fucking slaves we do what we like to do. And if we like to chain you, we chain you. And if we like to collar you, we collar you. Because we think it’s good for you. Because we think, as a slave you’ll need it. And that’s the only thing that counts. Slaves have no rights at all. Keep that in your mind, you bloody little bastard. Slaves have no right to protest or resist. The laws for men are not for them. They have no will of their own, no identity, they just have a number, and you’ll get yours stamped on your ass like a piece of cattle, just like all the others. For slaves are no more than animals, to be treated by their masters as they see fit. They just have to accept what their owners decide will happen to them. If they have to be chained, they accept being chained. If they are collared, they accept being collared. They have no own wishes, no own thoughts, no own decisions. For slaves there’s just one rule and one thought: to obey, and to obey always and everywhere. You heard me? Always and everywhere, without protest and without contesting the rightness of any decision taken for them. And you now gotta be punished for not doing that, so hold still.’

I couldn’t move in any case but I braced myself for the blows. I heard the belt swish before it landed on my ass. I yelled and again as another fell. He swung as hard as he could, some hitting full in the centre of my ass, some (and these were the worst) curling round the side and whipping the more tender parts of my body. He gave me ten. By the end I was yelling no more, just blubbing like a baby.

‘I hope, you’ve learned your lesson, boy,’ the taller warder said, breathing heavily from the exertion of the beating. ‘And now we’ll carry on from where we left off. So we’ll put on you that nice collar each chain-slave is fitted with in this little world of ours. And we do that, because it’s good for you. We do that because we think it’s good for you having to wear day and night a high and tight heavy iron collar solidly welded around your neck, slave, because it’ll make you, stubborn as you are, more obedient, especially now when you are still fresh. Yes, we do that, because we know that each slave deserves a thick, close-fitting ring of strong steel riveted firmly and permanently around his fucking throat to keep his mind continually in the total state of submissiveness which is necessary to keep things going on as they should. And you’ll need that collar too, boy, you’ll need it firmly fastened and fixed in place for that goal perhaps even more than many others, because you apparently still don’t believe that slavery is your destiny. You still somehow think we’re just playing games, that the whole scene will be over within a few hours. But it won’t be over then, and you’re the type that has to feel that from the beginning. You’ll need the permanent pressure of that eight pounds of solid iron on your miserable throat while drudging under the threat of the lash. Not hesitating but behaving as a good slave every second. We know that. We know that from experience.’

He paused again, still a little out of breath because he had spoken very quickly. ‘Seen this way, you in fact should even be grateful to us, for being collared from the outset. Keeping you submissive by nature may save you from a lot of lashes. So, it could even be seen as an act of humanity on our part to donate you a real ancient slave-collar, to protect yourself from your own stupid impulses towards disobedience when you’re forced to slave. And the more heavy that collar we put on you is, and the more severe it is to wear, the more easily you will submit, boy. So a heavy collar in fact is even more humane than a light one, and one of solid steel more humane than one just made of soft leather, and to give you a heavy iron one is certainly the best thing for you.’

He considered for a moment, seemingly pleased by his own arguments, and then continued, ‘And for that reason, you will not resist now, boy. Oh no! You will not resist any longer, when we collar you. Oh no! You’ll not resist any longer, when we start to do to you what you deserve and need as a slave. And we know, what you deserve, be sure about that. Huh! So you will not resist, when we put your nice, fine slave-collar on you within a few minutes, do you hear me! You will not resist while we fix it safely and securely around your slave throat. You’ll not resist any more, when the mallet is fixing the rivet, that is already glowing red specially for you in the oven, into the holes of your new nice collar safely and securely, when it is welding both ends of it together in an irremovable way, with your miserable slave-neck wholly secured inside it for the next ten years. Oh no! You won’t do that, do you hear me? You won’t even try, yeah! You’ll keep your fucking head instead very, very docile on that anvil over there till we’ve finished the job, you understand! And you’ll feel fine afterwards, yes. You’ll feel very good, being collared by us so kindly, very, very good, because you’ll feel yourself in that iron neck ring to be the fucking slave you have become and that we’re going to reinforce in you over the next days. And, I assure you, it really helps! It helps you to behave as you should! Wearing your pretty slave-collar, you’ll not be able to resist that splendid feeling of slavishness and submissivness any longer. It’s inside you and we’ll bring it out of you and end by making a useful slave out of you. The pressure of inflexible iron on your neck, those eight pounds, will do that for us. By its weight it’ll force you to bend your neck automatically, and through that help to bend your mind. Besides that, your collar will be welded so close to your skin that with each breath you’ll feel it. As your throat expands with each breath you’ll feel it press against you, not allowing more than a fraction of an inch for you to breathe. So by you’ll be continually aware that you’ve lost your freedom and from a free man with a will of his own you’ll be transformed into a chained and numbered, nameless slave without any. And as you well know boy, you have to breathe to live so you will be reminded every second of your slavery, every second!’

He stopped again to observe the effect all this was shaving on me. I just couldn’t move but my breath got faster as if I was already choking on the collar constricting my throat.

‘Apart from all this,’ he continued, ‘your slave-collar is made of the finest steel, so be proud of it. It’s not every place that slaves are allowed to wear such a well-made ornament! In fact you should rather ask for it, beg for it, because as the fucking slave you just stated you are, you desire it, you long for it. Yes! I want you to beg for it, boy. I want you to beg for your own slave-collar. I want to hear you saying “please give this fucking slave the iron collar he needs to be reminded day and night of his irrevocable state of total submission.” Understood, boy? So say it, and say it now.’

There was no alternative, so I said what he wanted, word for word, feeling drained of all emotion. The guy looked satisfied. ‘You start to learn. Well, boy, we’ll do you that pleasure. We’ll fix it for you within a few minutes in a way you’ll never get rid of without our assistance. And you will enjoy wearing it, so you will be grateful for us doing that.’

Then he changed the tone of his voice.

‘So we’re going soon very, very meekly to that anvil over there,’ he almost whispered in a decent and reasonable voice, ‘to claim your very, very nice collar that will suit you as a slave very, very well. And at that anvil you therefore will bow your head, meekly and submissively so that we don’t have to heave your heavy collar as high as your head is now. Because we otherwise might strain ourselves in lifting, huh? And so we’ll be able to put that very, very nice collar around your neck without any trouble, because you will continue to behave in a very, very tractable fashion. And so the blacksmith will go to the fire and take the glowing rivet out, while you’re still very, very tractable and submissive and obedient and fucking grateful. And then that collar will close thanks to that glowing rivet, close for ever by welding its still open ends firmly together. And at that very, very moment, your neck will already be inside it, boy, oh yes, and from then onwards will continue to stay inside for the next ten years, to be safely sealed by that collar, with your chin projecting to one side of it and your shoulders on the other. And at that very, very moment as a good slave you will feel we’re doing justice to you because we do what you know you really deserve — to become a useful tool in our hands. So you will submit yourself obediently to the whole process and you won’t make a move till it’s over and done. And from that very, very moment on, your neck will be kept sealed that way for ever during your stay in this place. And while your head is now starting to serve and your body is starting to slave, that collar will always help to connect continually your psychic enslavement to your physical enslavement, because it will always be in-between.’

He continued, ‘So we’re now going to start. We’ll do the whole thing slowly, so that you won’t miss anything and will have plenty of time to enjoy the fine feeling of having your new iron slave-collar steadily welded around your neck. Imagine how you will feel when the hot bolt is entering its holes, and each blow of the mallet is flattening more and more on the other end, and so both halves of your collar are hammered shut. And because of that glorious, happy feeling, I want to hear you ask when the blacksmith returns with that glowing rivet to the anvil, “Please Sir, please fix my new slave-collar around my miserable neck so tight and firmly that it never will come off.” Yes, you will do that. Because as a slave it is your deepest wish. And after being collared, you will show us your gratitude for this by saying: “Thank you Sir, for being so kind as to collar me, because this heavy narrow neck band of steel is exactly what this new slave wants and needs.” Keep this in mind, boy. I want you to say this, I want to hear you saying that afterwards, word for word, because it’s good for you.’

I then was dragged across the room again. Bob took up the collar and held it right under my nose. ‘Have a good look at it,’ he said, ‘because you’ll not see it empty like this again for the next ten years.’

I looked with abhorrence at the piece of heavy metal, but nevertheless I now was able to have a closer inspection of the symbol of the state of slavery I was condemned to wear. It was, I must admit, well made, and apart from the big hinge by which both halves were connected, the collar seemed to be forged from just one big piece of solid steel. At the open side of the collar, both ends of the rounded halves were bent outward into flat thick blades, which projected for some inches. Those blades were only half as high as the collar-ring itself, the left one welded to the upper half of the collar-ring, the right one to the lower half. Both blades halfway had some strange big notch on one side — the lower on the left blade, the upper on the right — I noticed on the outside of both blades a deep hole, pointing down. It wasn’t quite clear to me how it would function.

At that moment, Bob clashed both halves of the collar together. ‘And thus it will close safely for ever around your neck,’ he said, pointing at the holes of both blades, which now made up one single deep hole, ‘as the bolt will go in here.’

Thereupon he moved his forefinger in the direction of the ring of the collar, and at the same time, I recognised that the strange notches now together made up a big circular hole. ‘And through this hole,’ the guard explained to me kindly, ‘will go the thick shackle of a fine, huge padlock that will connect your slave-collar when we restrain you. You’ll get to know the heavy slave-chain by which your neck will be fastened by us to the huge iron ring which is fixed into the massive stone wall of your dungeon each night.’

Apparently he thought these words sufficient for the moment, because he opened the iron collar in front of me, the straight blades pointing in my direction. Then they forced my head to bow. Thereupon the collar went round my neck, finally, relentlessly. It felt very cold, but it wasn’t that which made me shiver. It was the weight. My God, it was terrible. I’d never had such a weight squeezing my shoulders before. It seemed to have been made of lead. The bastards! Eight pounds of strong steel at least! And that they called ‘standard irons’! Apart from that, the collar was so high that it nearly enclosed my whole throat, and so tight that I immediately started to gasp a little after both halves of the thick ring had been closed at the back with a bang and the heavy iron pushed against my Adam’s apple in front.

I felt that I couldn’t stand it for very long and therefore I must get a wider one. Although I was still frightened by the lecture given to me, I knew I had to beg for it now, because once the bolt would be put in place and both halves of the collar thus welded together, they wouldn’t remove it from my neck for ten whole years, and I surely wouldn’t be able to remove it myself.

So I begged Bob, who was handling the iron tool, ‘Please Sir, please. I can’t stand this iron collar for long. I can’t stand this collar for my whole stay of ten years. It’s too close fitting for me, I’ll choke in it. Please Sir, please, give me a wider one, I beg you, please!’

The warder turned his head slowly, looking a little bit amused by my question. ‘Oh no, slave,’ he replied light-heartedly, ‘We won’t give you another. This slave-collar is pretty fine. It’s exactly the right one for you. It fits you very well. You’ll look great in it, and you’ll feel yourself great in it in the future even more. You won’t need a looser one. We know just what size of slave collar suits. We want you to live some years for our pleasure, although you yourself might have other notions if you knew what our pleasure is.’

He laughed shortly in a way I can only describe as satanic and continued. ‘For that reason we choose just this one. It makes you gasp at the right moments and so makes it easier for us to discipline you. This pretty piece of iron has exactly the same width as that miserable slave-neck of you, boy, we’ve measured that before, you remember, and we don’t expect your neck to have expanded suddenly in the last minutes, do we, huh? So there ain’t no problems in closing it safely for you. Might altogether be a bit oppressive in the beginning, but we can’t take the risk that you’ll just pull it off over your head one day, you understand. Of course your throat will have to give a little from now on, sure, but as you will have to do that in many fields during the next weeks, it’s all in your learning process. Gets you used to that, boy, yeah! And for that reason you’ll get used to the pressure and the weight of your collar too.’

‘Perhaps one day you’ll get used to it even a bit too much and forget by that that you’re enslaved. If that should happen, don’t panic. We’ll always be there to help you to recover the consciousness of being just a slave. We’ll then replace the collar you’re going to wear now with a still heavier one, and perhaps later again, when your new collar wouldn’t suffice any longer either. Anyhow, that won’t be a problem for a long time to come, because in case of emergency we’ve a stack of those slave-collars up to twenty pounds. And if the worst comes to the worst we can always forge a still heavier one here for you. So don’t be afraid, because our blacksmith here is always willing to serve you. In fact, one of our slaves already wears one of over twenty pounds, specially made for him. While he’s doing his daily slave’s work in the quarries, it makes of him a better manageable sample than he had ever been before. So don’t worry that today it may perhaps feel a little narrow, you’ll soon get accustomed to it — more or less. Anyhow, you’d better do, because you’ve no choice. And now we’ve got to move on, because there are two other fresh chainslaves waiting their turn to get collared safely this evening too. So keep still now, as we want to finish the job.’

I understood that my begging had been totally without result. They decided what would happen to me, without considering my feelings about that at all. I just had to wear what they had chosen for me anyhow. So I didn’t dare to fight back again, and got on my knees without having to be forced. I’d learned my lesson for the time being, as my ass still hurt from the blows. In the meantime the blacksmith had taken up his pair of long-handed tongs to go to the fire to take out the bolt.

‘You behave much better now, slave,’ the other guard said. ‘Keep it like this, because the blacksmith doesn’t like to hear any sound coming out of you while he’s working. That’s bad for his concentration, you know, and therefore may be bad for you too. He might miss a blow, huh? So you now just lay down on your back, keeping your slave-neck near to that anvil, and don’t move after that, for we’ll start in a few seconds then to rivet your collar in place. You just beg the blacksmith to fix it as firm as possible, don’t forget it, huh! Otherwise he might forget to do that, huh! And you don’t want that, huh! Because you don’t want to have the risk that one day you might lose your nice new collar unexpectedly, and neither do we.’

‘After that it’s very simple. You’ve nothing to do yourself, you’ll be totally served by us. You’ve only to wait patiently and silently, till we’ve indeed fixed your fine new neck-ring. Just lie down on your back, with your head in front of the anvil, with the backward-blades of the collar resting on it. It might take a little more time than the other cuffs, because we don’t want the head of a nice new slave to be hit by that hammer, and you will understand that at the same time your slave-collar has to be fastened very, very solidly around your throat. You see, we wouldn’t like it if you lost it someday, somewhere, by accident.’

The guard apparently was very pleased by his own joke, judging from the fact that he had repeated it. So I was forced down to the anvil again, this time by my head, to get the collar they had put on me welded close. I had to lie down almost totally on my back to reach it, only bending the upper parts of my body upward. It’s the most humiliating position you can imagine, lying down this way, with your neck soon going to be fettered by a huge ring of solid steel. I assure you, it really makes you feel like you are becoming a slave.

The guy was right. There’s nothing more that can make anybody aware of his hopeless position, than to become collared this way, lying on the ground, with your neck pressed to the side of an anvil and already enclosed by its predestined heavy cuff, only waiting for the hard blows which will close it definitively around you. To be laid down on the plank of the guillotine to wait for your execution can’t be much worse. And in a way, I was sentenced to death, as my civil life was ending now, although at that moment I still hadn’t the slightest idea what slavery in daily practice really would mean.

But there was no escape, so I waited with resignation in my uncomfortable position till the ‘blacksmith’ would return from the fire with the fatal rivet, that would fix securely the inevitable slave-collar I had from now on to wear continuously for the next ten years. Because the collar closed at the back, I wouldn’t be able to see what exactly they were going to do as in the case of the cuffs around my ankles and wrists. But I would feel it and hear it — and that was perhaps more frightening than seeing it, for by only hearing and feeling, without seeing, the whole process would be more intense. For you don’t know what exactly is going on, and can only be sure there’s something horrible happening to you which you can’t prevent, so you have to wait for the ‘unknown,’ but ‘sensed’ result at the end.

So I had no option but to lie down, waiting in a passive state till the whole thing was over. Within a minute, the blacksmith returned with the needed big bolt, which was glowing in a frightening way.

‘Now it’s your turn, boy, you know what you have to beg for,’ Bob at that moment hissed in my ear, ‘or otherwise we’ll whip the words out of you.’

So I stammered, made wholly mellow by everything that had happened during the last hours, ‘Please Sir, please weld my new slave-collar as firmly as possible around my humble neck, so that it never will come off.’

‘We’ll do that,’ Bob replied generously. ‘We’ll do that for you, slave, we promise you that. We’ll fulfill your deepest wish.’

In the meantime the blacksmith had passed round and reached the anvil behind me, while Bob bent my head forwards and kept it fixed with his hands in that position during the whole process, so that it wouldn’t be in the way when the hammer would fall down to rivet the two open halves of the ring together. Shortly after that I felt a light jerk at my neck, as the blacksmith inserted the hot bolt in the holes. I experienced the heat spreading steadily from the bolt throughout the collar. Then I felt and heard the first blow. It was very near to my ears, and the dull drone of the mallet at my collar made me shiver. It was much more horrible than I’d ever imagined before. The shock of the blow went through my throat, my chin, my head, through my whole body.

And then that sound! O God, that sound! I’ll never forget that sound! It was a terrible sound!

To me it was the most terrible sound I’d ever heard till then. The first blow of the hammer on the big rivet rumbled and roared into my ears as never did any sound before. It entered my head from behind and went through and through and through. And I knew that a lot of blows after that would follow! How to describe my feelings at that moment!

O God, there’s nothing comparable to being forced to lie down as I was totally defenceless and having to listen to the blows of a mallet behind you, while knowing that with each new blow a hot bolt is driven more irreversably inside the holes of a thick iron band slapped around your neck, and thus is riveting both halves of the heavy collar more firmly together which makes a chainslave out of you for ever. I assure you, there’s nothing that can make your sense of loosing your freedom, yes, even more intense than that, of your masculinity.

Then the next blow followed, after a short interval, hard and unavoidable. Each blow not only made that a horrible noise again but was attended with a brief but sharp tug on my neck, because the blacksmith smashed his hammer so violently that my collar moved a little backwards each time. But that little tug on my back was enough to have the inflexible iron pressing each time, with each blow, against my Adam’s apple in front and get me nearly choking. O Lord, I thought I wouldn’t stand it, it was such a horrible experience, the more so as the clasping metal band was becoming warmer and warmer.

But I didn’t dare to move, fearing that otherwise the blacksmith might by accident strike my head instead of the bolt, or the fixing would cost more time, and therefore the iron of my collar would become hotter still. I counted the blows. There were eleven in total, then the blacksmith stopped. The band of steel around my neck had already become rather warm now, but luckily soon after that a bucket of cold water was chucked over me. I heard the iron hissing like hell, and felt that the collar was cooling, as must the rivet which held it fixed. And I knew that the cooler and thus more bearable the collar became, the cooler that bolt became too, hardening and binding with the metal of the collar so that the two became one.

Then the hissing stopped, and the iron band around my neck was cold again — and so too was the bolt, which nobody could remove now by any means. So that was it. The most humiliating part of my introduction to slavery was over. Gasping for air, I tried to come to terms with the horrible state I had ended up in. I was collared now, collared as a slave. It still seemed incredible to me. For the rest of my stay here I had to wear this heavy and high tight-fitting ring of inflexible iron around my neck permanently! I had to wear it day and night, to work in it, to eat in it, to sleep in it. I had to live in it twenty-four hours a day as the most visible and most demanding mark of my enslavement. And above all: I had to wear it for ten whole years. Ten whole years! O God, ten whole years! I wouldn’t be able to remove it, I knew it. I had to get used to it, I had no other choice than that. I was not a man any more, I was reduced to the rank of a dog, of a piece of cattle, of a tool, with which the prison-guards could do what they wanted. I was a slave now, and everybody seeing me would be aware of that at once.

‘Well, boy, that feels much better, wearing your new iron collar, doesn’t it?,’ the taller guard said with a sarcastic sneer. ‘And you will feel even better still, when you’re chained up by it soon as a real slave. When you’re not needed for slave duties, we’ll attach it with a heavy chain to an iron ring set in the wall of the cold dungeon that is the slave-stables. You’ll sleep safe and secure in the midst of your fellow-slaves, and after some time you’ll really begin to accept the fact that that handsome slave-collar around your neck will never come off and that therefore you’ll have to wear it for ever. Yes, it’s permanent all right — I can set your mind at ease on that point: our blacksmith is an expert. No one ever got out of the fetters he made. So, thanks to his fine work, you don’t need to fear that in an unguarded moment some punk will try to steal your nice new collar, be sure of that. So what do you say, slave? You will be grateful, I suppose?’

He looked intently at me, waiting for a reaction. At first, I couldn’t get the words out of my throat, and that wasn’t because it was constricted by the collar. But I had to, as he repeated his question with a more threatening emphasis now. ‘Yes, Sir,’ I croaked after a while, ‘Thank you for your kindness in having my slave-neck collared, Sir, I feel much better now.’

But the guy wasn’t satisfied by that. ‘Well, boy,’ he said drawling, ‘I’m waiting for more.’

‘Thank you, Sir, I feel much better now, because this heavy steel neckband is exactly what this new slave has needed and desired for a long, long time.’ The words brainwashed into me came out in one long toneless breath. I couldn’t do otherwise. My enforced self-humiliation was complete: I had begged for a heavy iron collar and got it; I had begged for it to be welded in an irremovable way around my neck as the most obvious mark of my slavery, and they had done it; and now I had thanked them for lowering me to the rank of an animal.

‘That’s fine, slave,’ the warder answered in a falsely pleasant tone. ‘You’re starting to get the idea of how to behave. It’s nice that you like your collar already, and that you agree with us that we’ve chosen the right one and the right width for you. It’s nice to hear that it fits well and that you now feel better thanks to that, because you feel more of a slave than you did before. Because, you know, we like to have our trainees happy here.’

He waited, as if to see how I would react — but I was too exhausted for any reply — and then continued, ‘So I’m quite sure you’ll become a good slave. Wearing your collar, you’ll be aware permanently, that you’re a nameless chainslave, just a number out of our slave-stables, forced to toil and moil continuously by your fear of the lash. Yes, I’m quite sure, you will do all the heavy slaves’ work that we consider good for you to do without any hesitation. You’re here to be punished and you’ll serve your time in our in our chain gangs during the next ten years from sunrise till sunset day after day.’

Then I was left for a while lying on the floor, fettered, giving me some time to get accustomed to the heavy iron rings riveted to my hands, feet and neck. But I didn’t get accustomed to them at all. The weight of them individually had been enough but together they made up a formidable weight and the narrowness of the collar still made me gasp for fresh air. The guards left me alone like that for a while, apparently without fear that I might try to run away. With reason, for escape was impossible. There were too many warders around the place for that. And even if I could have left the room unattended and unobserved, the fetters fixed to my body would betray me at sight as being a slave, a fugitive from a chain gang, and so would my new haircut too. Apart from that, the total weight of it had stripped me of any desire to try.

The warders now proceeded to the other studs, both also condemned to slavery for many years because of some minimal crimes. They had been brought in together while I was resting with my head on the anvil, waiting to become collared, so they must have seen the iron ring being riveted around my neck. And, judging by the look in their faces, they must have seen it with horror, knowing that it was their turn next to get cuffed and collared like me. They had already the same haircut as I had, and now indeed underwent the same process as I did before, proceeding from ankles via wrists to the throat. First their feet, then their hands were put on the anvil, and just like me they were fitted with the same irremovable pounds of iron shackles. Then the time came for fitting their neckrings. The collar went on, their gasping throat was bent to the anvil, the glowing bolt went in, the mallet fell a dozen times, and so they too were definitively transformed from free men into collared slaves like me.

The smaller of the two men, the one I had seen already at the court, wept all the time when the warders were busy with him, especially at the moment the collar was welded together. The other lad just stared in front of him, impassively, as he had already done in his cage in the van.

To be continued…