By unknown

As my master (my real master) put the shackles on he said, “You will be in bondage for the rest of your life, it may change from time to time, but you will never again know what it is like to be free”. My master then helped me on to the buckboard it was very difficult to climb up in shackles.

He gave me a deep kiss and then put on the hood, and after adjusting it so my nose would fit though the hole and so my mouth would be free, he locked it around my neck and said, “You will not see again until you are in your room, the room that will be your home for the rest of your life. I will control all that you see from now on.”

I woke up when the first rays of the sun hit my naked body through the window. I thought, “Perhaps today, I’ll be allowed to see for awhile, perhaps today, I’ll be touched, even if only the thin leather strands of my owner’s whip”. I then began the struggle to right myself once again. It is not easy to change position with your feet and hands shackled to a ring in the floor by only one link.

Long ago I had given up trying to get loose, even though I had become thinner on the meager rations, so that I could slip a finger under the shackles, the cold steel was unyielding. Besides, my partially successful attempt at escaping when I was first brought here is why I am bound in strong metal and why I have the thick leather hood locked around my neck, with only a hole for my nose and mouth.

When I was first brought here…how long ago was that? I really can’t say.