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Subject: {ASSM} {EZ}{NEW}MacKenzie's Journal I (See below)
Date: Sun, 29 Jun 2003 21:10:03 -0400
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This is the first part of a six-part historical novella first published at
Ruthie's Club in November, 2002, where it appeared beautifully illustrated
by Lloyd W. Meek.

The story codes would be MF+, Romance, D/s, BDSM, Slavery. The last of these
is literally slavery for the story is set in South Carolina during in 1839.

My thanks as always to my excellent and delightful editors - Gail Zane and
Ruthie.

The attached work of fiction is intended to be entertainment for adults in
locations where it is legal.  If it is illegal in your location, DO NOT
read.  This is a copyrighted work.  Reposting or any other use strictly
prohibited without the express, written permission of the copyright holder,
except may be posted as part of a  review or posted to free-access,
noncommercial archive sites.

Copyright 2002, 2003 by E. Z. Riter.

E-mail address: ezriter@hotmail.com

The works of E. Z. Riter are archived at www.asstr-mirror.org and
www.storiesonline.net

The works of E. Z. Riter writing as Ezra Zane as archived at
www.ruthiesclub.com, the web's premiere illustrated erotic pay site.

Please!        Give me your comments!



MACKENZIE'S JOURNAL I

The Journey

By Ezra Zane

In early Spring of the year of Our Lord Eighteen Hundred and Thirty-Nine, I,
Robert James MacKenzie, was a strapping lad of sixteen, not fully grown at
six feet in height and with the red-topped, raw-boned strength of my
ancestors. My father, Robert Bruce MacKenzie, my sister, Elizabeth, who was
thirteen, and I lived at Ironwood. My mother, may God rest her soul,
departed for her eternal reward in 1827.

Ironwood lay on the flat plains in western South Carolina abutting the
Savannah River. It was primarily a cotton and tobacco plantation, but we
grew a variety of crops including corn, wheat, barley, and other grains. We
had a large garden for our vegetables, an orchard of fruit and nut trees,
and cattle, sheep, swine, and poultry for meat and by-products. More than a
simple farm, Ironwood was a community producing nearly everything we needed.
Houses were built, clothes made, plows mended, horses shod. Unlike some
plantations whose owners were less enterprising than my father and
grandfather, Ironwood had its own blacksmith shop, tannery and harness shop,
and an apothecary. Our midwives assisted in the many births. We needed
little that the plantation didn't produce except salt and iron goods.

Farming our vast lands and multiple crops required countless hard days of
toil in the fields. All our workers, in truth, all the denizens of Ironwood
except my family, were Negro slaves. My grandfather acquired the first
slaves when he founded Ironwood over fifty years before. Since then, our
slaveholdings had grown as the plantation grew. Many of our slaves were born
and raised at Ironwood. Others were acquired from the slave markets in
Savannah or other plantations.

Grandfather and Father both treated our slaves far differently than was
typical. "I've followed my own father's footsteps, Robert," Father once told
me. "I treat my slaves better and give them more than other slave owners.
They work harder for the better life." At Ironwood, the whip was rarely
used. Rather, uncooperative or unproductive slaves were sold.

Ironwood was the only plantation I knew of where a slave, rather than a
hired white-man, was the overseer, as the manager was called. Our overseer
was named Jonah. Approximately Father's age, Jonah lived in the largest of
the slave houses with his wife, Sarah, who managed the household since
Mother died, his two sons, Samuel and David, and his daughter, Constance
Anne, who was named after Mother.

We were at dinner one night, seated, as always, with Father at the head,
Elizabeth on his left, and I opposite him. Father looked at me and said,
"Robert, Mr. Whitfield died and his funeral is day after tomorrow at
Whitlands. We'll need to leave in the morning. You'll drive the buckboard
and I'll ride alongside."

"Why can't I go?" Elizabeth asked.

"We'll be bringing back slaves," Father replied.

I responded, "I'll be ready, Father." From the corner of my eye, I saw Sarah
watching me intently and I wondered why.

Before sunrise the next morning, Sarah awakened me. I dressed in my
traveling suit, packed my best clothes to wear at the funeral, and trotted
downstairs to eat another of our cook's delicious breakfasts of eggs, ham,
fresh made bread, and strong tea. Immediately upon finishing, we gathered
our greatcoats to ward off the cold dankness of the early morn, checked and
holstered our weapons, and joined Jonah in front of the Great House where he
had readied our horses.

I did not like driving the buckboard. The easy gait of horseback was less
tiring on my backside than the buckboard's bounce and our riding horses set
a quicker pace than the buckboard's paired draft horses. Father hadn't asked
my opinion and I, therefore, didn't give one.

With Father on Liberty, his red steed, leading the way, we rode down
Ironwood's main road, past the gardens and the fruit tree orchards to the
main gate where we joined the common road leading to Whitlands. Father paid
me no mind. He was surveying his fields as we rode.

The sun had been up an hour or so when Father raised his hand to indicate we
should stop. I set the brake and tied the reins around it before stepping
down to stretch my legs and ease my already aching bones. We stripped off
our greatcoats and tossed them in back of the buckboard before drinking a
bit of water from the canteen Sarah packed for us. The day threatened
inclement weather, but as yet the rains of March weren't upon us.

When he was ready for us to begin again, Father surprised me by tying
Liberty to the buckboard.

"I'll ride with you, Robert," he said. "Why don't I drive for awhile?

"If you wish," I replied.

I climbed aboard, sitting on the left in the driver's seat as Father
loosened the reins, released the brake, and popped the reins on the team's
rumps to start us again.

There was only one reason Father would ride with me, for he hated the
buckboard as much as I did. He had something he wanted to say. I was silent.
He would tell me in his own good time. We passed the main gate to Riverwood,
the plantation that adjoined ours, before he began.

"Robert, we need to talk about women and children and life," he said
seriously.

Certainly, I was surprised. I knew about reproduction of animals as any farm
boy my age would, although I had not yet experienced my own first mating
despite a rapidly increasing eagerness to do so.

"Edward Whitfield was a good farmer. Whitlands is a prime property. I want
it, and Edward wanted me to have it upon his demise."

I said nothing. Father looked at me with a twinkle in his eye.

"I do appreciate a respectful silence, Son," he said. "But you're welcome to
join in the conversation. You will be a man in the blink of an eye."

"Are you going to buy Whitlands?" I asked.

"No, Robert. I have arranged for you to marry Jane Marie."

I choked and gasped, which made him guffaw so loudly he scared birds from
the trees. He slapped me on the back.

"I wish you could see your face," he said.

I didn't want to see my face. I'm sure it was red and mottled as it always
is when I'm flustered. "Father, I don't want to marry her," I said when I
had recovered my tongue.

"Why not? She's a good looking lass."

"It's not that. She's a... a shrew."

"Edward preferred to think of her as high-spirited. She will be a challenge
for you."

"Challenge? She'll be the death of me," I said.

"Hardly. She's certainly no worse than her mother."

"Who drove Mr. Whitfield to an early grave," I said, hoping for any point in
my favor to worm my way from under this life sentence he had pronounced on
me.

"Do you think?" Father asked. I could tell by his tone he was wise to my
gambit.

"Of course," I bluffed. "Even I could see the meanness of her spirit."

Father fixed his cool, calm eyes on me.

"Every man has a weakness, Robert. That weakness can be anything. Most
often, it's cards or whiskey or women's sweet cunts. Edward's weakness was
his relationship with Mary Elizabeth, his own wife. Do you remember
September, my mare?"

"Yes, Father," I replied. September was his favorite horse before Liberty.
What she had to do with this discussion, I had no idea.

"Do you remember sitting on the fence watching me train her? You might not,
you were only eight at the time."

"No, I remember. September was the first horse I watched you break."

"Were you there the day we roped her legs and whipped her?"

"Yes, I was," I answered.

"That day made her docile, more malleable and eager to please. I didn't
bring the whip harshly to her at first. I tried softer techniques, but, in
the end, the whip brought her to heel."

"Are you suggesting a woman should be treated that way?"

"I'm saying a harsh and demanding hand with a liberal dose of punishment can
soften a woman's demeanor, but it should be applied only if all else fails."

"Even Mrs. Whitfield?"

"I think she would greatly benefit from it."

"But we don't whip our slaves," I said.

"No, we don't, and I hope we never will."

"Then why would a man whip a white woman who is his wife?"

He laughed. "Because you can't sell them," he said. He popped the reins and
called to the team. They quickened their pace.

I was sorely confused. Here I was still a virgin with bright shining ideas
of marriage and baser ideas of the hard coupling of bodies I only knew from
hints in books or whispers with my friends, and yet, I was quickly to be a
married man shackled to a shrew of a wife with her painful harping blighting
my own bleak future.

And whipping? I knew slaves were whipped when their master thought it was
needed. At Father's insistence, I had witnessed that harsh punishment of two
unfortunate souls at Riverwood, whose owner felt the whip was the only way
to bring compliance with his wishes. But a woman? My wife?

Suddenly, a question popped into mind. "Did you whip Mother?" I blurted out.

He looked sharply at me and flicked the reins again.

I hardly remembered my mother, who died giving birth to Elizabeth when I was
three. What I do remember was a soft, warm, smiling women who sang to me at
night and talked to me in hushed, loving tones, whose eyes sparkled with
tender mischief when we played a game. I sometimes stood before her portrait
hanging above the fireplace in the parlor and stared, letting her
countenance renew my dim memories. I wondered what she was like in flesh and
blood, and if my recollections of her arms around me when I was small were
as they truly were or figments of my fertile imagination.

I had never thought of her as a woman, only a mother. Father's comments to
me that day thrust her into a different light.

Father kept his face from me, but I saw him brush a tear from his cheek. He
slowed the rig to a stop, set the brake, and stepped down. I watched him
walk away, pretending to check the harness while bringing his handkerchief
to his eyes.

Turning to me, he said, "I'll ride for awhile." He untied Liberty's reins
from the buckboard, mounted, and kicked the big horse ahead at a gallop. I
slid behind the buckboard's reins, released the brake, and followed after
him.

What was my mother like?

I had met other women and I knew what they were like. My father's mother was
tall and thin, with a perpetually sour face as if lemons were her only
sustenance. Except at dinner, I don't remember ever seeing her without a
prayer book in her hand or a shawl draped over her bony shoulders. Mrs.
Whitfield was a shrew, carping and biting. Mrs. Townsend, of the Savannah
Townsends and wife of Father's solicitor, was plump as a berry and bland as
oatmeal with nary a thought of her own.

I liked to think Mother was like Elizabeth, my sister, or, I should say,
Elizabeth was like Mother. Elizabeth was bright and shiny with eyes that
either glowed with happiness or batted petulantly when she wanted her way.
Elizabeth was a sprite, a bundle of sweet smelling joy dancing through
Ironwood and our lives. Yes, Mother must have been that way. Father's
reaction was too strong for anything else.

My thoughts turned to Jane Marie Whitfield, my bride-to-be if Father carried
through with his awful plan. Jane Marie was striking with black hair down to
her waist and white porcelain skin. Lately, she kept her cute nose high in
the air, to everyone's misfortune. And she did have beautiful blue eyes. I
knew those eyes when she flirted with me, and Jane Marie had played the
coquette more than once. But more often lately I had seen those eyes angry
and spiteful. To see her then was like looking in the open gates of Hell.
That view of her, and living with it forever, disheartened me.

As to Jane Marie's body, I had some idea since the white women in our region
often dressed in flowing gowns, leaving their shoulders bare, with corsets
and stays to narrow their waists and raise their bosoms in, for me at least,
an unfulfilled promise of treasures to come. I must admit I found the long
curve of Jane Marie's neck, the perfect symmetry of her collarbones, and the
soft flesh flowing to what appeared to be well-formed breasts quite
appealing. However, the gowns they wore and the boots they donned to enhance
their shapely feet and the pains with which they applied their makeup, all
to attract the attention of men, seemed to be folly, for when we were
attracted, they drove us off, huffing that our attentions were unwanted.

The slaves in the fields wore less armament, dressing simply in loose,
flowing dresses that moved in the wind as they worked. That wind was an ally
to man, sometimes blowing their dresses against their bodies revealing
valleys and hills to titillate our thoughts.

I had seen only one woman naked. It was a queer incident of fate lasting
only a few moments, but those moments were stamped in my brain as indelibly
as the foundry's name was stamped on a plow.

We had a slave named Pearly Bright. She was a house slave, which meant she
worked in the house as a maid or cook or laundress rather than in the
fields. Her residence, unlike all the other slaves, was adjunct to the Great
House itself, allowing her entrance without enduring the weather.

Late one night less than a year ago, I awoke with a deep hunger for the
gooseberry pie I knew Cook had left in the kitchen. I quietly slipped out of
my bed and padded downstairs in my stocking feet to find the sweetness to
dispatch my ache. The moon was bright that night, filtering through the
shade trees on the kitchen side of the house.

Before I could light a kitchen candle, I heard a giggle and the patter of
feet. I froze, hidden, I thought, in the darkness of the room. In a moment,
a female form floated out of the hall and crossed the kitchen toward the
door leading to Pearly Bright's quarters. The moonlight reflected from her
shiny black skin for she was in all her naked glory. How I wished for the
brightness of the sun or a candelabra, at least, to illuminate what I could
see-the roundness of her breasts with the long hard tissue jutting from it,
the curve of her backside and her legs-and reveal what I couldn't see at all
but desperately wanted to see-the hidden secrets of her sex.

She stopped with her hand on the doorknob to her quarters and half-turned to
look at me. The brightness of her teeth flashed like a lighthouse beacon
with the whites of her eyes reflective counterpoints.

"You needs to ask yo' Pappy for a pretty little girl like me, Master
Robert," she said in a tone I'd never heard but knew instinctively
represented raw carnality.

She opened the door and was gone, leaving me shaking and unbelieving of what
had transpired. I was struck dumb, not recovering my senses until I found
myself in my own room with a gooseberry pie in one hand and a painfully
stiff manhood in the other. I dispatched the latter before sinking back in
my feather bed to eat the former and dream of Pearly Bright.

I knew then Pearly Bright wasn't walking naked through the Great House at
Ironwood for no reason. That hall led to Father's bedroom. I didn't ask him
about it because of my own embarrassment. Thereafter, I watched him and
Pearly Bright. During the day, he treated her no differently than he treated
the other slaves, and she was a good servant who acted like she deserved no
special preferences.

But I suddenly could see what I suspect had been there all along but
invisible to me. I saw the tiny downturn of her head accompanied by those
big black eyes staring up at him through her lashes, or the tilt of her body
as she served by bowing from the waist to offer to him a glance at her
breasts, or other signals of her sexuality, and her eagerness to share it
with him.

I realized, too, I had seen those signals other times from her to him, and
from other women to other men. I had even seen such signs from Jane Marie
Whitfield to me on more than one occasion, but I had been too naive to
understand them.

I certainly did wish my Father would provide me with a pretty girl like
Pearly Bright to patter to my bed and do with me what I could only imagine,
but I did not ask. To do so would have been a violation of the unspoken
social contract I felt with him.

I reconsidered Jane Marie and her signals, wondering if they were
intentional and for me, or intentional but I was only a surrogate for
someone else whether named or unnamed, or unintentional and part of nature's
plan her body unthinkingly performed as she grew. Of course, now that I was
aware of the import of those subtle signs, I was determined to act upon
them.

I saw Jane Marie on a regular basis as our families visited back and forth
at one plantation or the other. The next time she passed those signs, I
responded, receiving a screech, a slap, and a tongue lashing for my effort,
which led me to believe she was a tease. Never once did I consider I might
have read the signs incorrectly for I had studied Pearly Bright's movements
with the intensity a scientist studies a bug, and felt assured in my
conclusions.

We visited the Whitfields again, and again Jane Marie passed me the signs. I
did not respond for I knew what to expect. I was slapped anyway and labeled
a cad for ignoring her.

Certainly, no man can happily suffer this kind of treatment and I did not
look forward to Jane Marie's presence in my life.

I saw Father standing beside Liberty on the edge of the roadway. The sun was
high over us now and I suddenly realized my belly was empty. I stopped
beside him. As I watered the horses, he opened the traveling basket Cook had
prepared and set a table on the buckboard's wide bed. We ate standing up to
allow the part of us that most suffered the journey's ride an opportunity to
rest.

When our repast was complete, he tied Liberty to the rig and took its reins
to drive. I sat silently beside him and waited for him to speak.

"I loved your Mother, God rest her soul. I loved her with all my heart."

The rattle of the buckboard, the chatter of the harness, and the rhythmical
plodding of the horses' hooves did not fill the void his silence left. I was
contemplating if my newly received permission to enter the conversation at
will entitled me to speak here, when Father spoke again.

"I have never told you our story, have I?"

"No, sir."

"Weddings are arranged, Robert, as I have arranged for you to marry Jane
Marie. It isn't so with all people. Some of the lower classes wed whoever
will have them or whoever first becomes round with their child, but arranged
marriages are our way. Your mother and I were an arranged marriage, as were
our parents before us and their parents before them. There is too much at
risk for it to be left to chance. Ownership of land and businesses pass by
marriage. Heritage and family traditions and accumulated wealth all pass by
marriage. Do you understand?"

"I think so, but, well...."

"Go on, Robert. Speak your mind."

"You say you loved Mother, but you had no say in marrying her."

"That's true, but my father saw that I loved her even though I was too young
to be aware of it. And he saw that she loved me. There were other matches he
could have made for me, matches that would enrich our family purse beyond
what dear Constance brought to us, but he knew our true feelings for each
other and arranged our marriage for our mutual benefit."

"Then why are you shackling me to Jane Marie?" I cried.

"She loves you and you will love her if you don't now."

"How can you say that? I despise her."

"Do you?" he asked.

"I said I did."

"Then why do your eyes gleam in happy anticipation when we go to Whitlands?
Why do you stand straight and tall while we're there? And why are you so
angry when she doesn't fall at your feet like a happy puppy?" His eyes
twinkled and he was grinning like a cat. "I'll tell you. Because you want
her to want you and when she acts like she doesn't, you are hurt and
confused."

"That's not it."

"Yes, it is, and I was the same way with your mother."

He closed his eyes and was lost in thought, not even realizing the team had
slowed once again.

"My God, Constance was a flirt. She would sashay and giggle and bat those
big eyes at me. She'd pretend she had some secret to tell me and come close
to whisper in my ear, but it was a ploy to tantalize my senses with her
delicious fragrance and push her breasts into me to tease me with their
softness."

"Oh."

He chuckled. "I've seen Jane Marie do that with you."

"I know," I replied, remembering the feel of Jane Marie's body on mine.

"Constance teased me unmercifully from the time we met when I was fifteen
and she was thirteen. By the time we married two years later, I was as keen
as a bull in mating season for her. She didn't disappoint me. Not once." He
popped the reins and the team stepped up their pace. "You asked if I ever
whipped her. I never did although I did warm her pretty bottom with my hand
a few times for our enjoyment."

"But there's a whip hanging on the wall of your bedroom."

"Ah, yes. Let me explain how that came to be. On the day before we married,
her father asked to see me in his study. I had never been alone with Mr.
Courtland and I didn't know what to expect. When we entered, Constance was
sitting primly on a chair by his desk. He motioned for me to sit. When I
did, he handed me that whip. 'A woman is like a horse, Bruce,' he said.
'Sometimes she needs a whip to encourage her to perform her tasks. That whip
was made for you, to use on my daughter if she earns it.' I was much
surprised as you might imagine. My dear Constance was watching me like a
bird watches a bug and I studied her with the same intensity.

"Then Mr. Courtland asked, 'Do you have anything to say, Constance?' Your
mother spoke the truth from her soul, saying, 'Use it if I need it, Bruce,
but I promise you now that I will never need it for I will be the wife of
your dreams.' Upon our marriage, we settled into the Little House at
Ironwood. She hung the whip on the wall there. When we moved into the Great
House, she again hung that whip near our bed. I never took it down. She was,
as she solemnly promised, the wife of my dreams."

"I need to pee," I said.

"Me, too," he replied. He brought the rig to a halt and we dismounted to
relieve ourselves on the bushes beside the road.

Once underway, I said, "Do you think I will need a whip for Jane Marie?"

"You might. She has seen her mother's carping and the misery she wrought on
Edward. She might think that is the way a marriage is supposed to be because
humans, like cats or dogs, learn from watching their elders. If she does,
I'd suggest a good spanking with your hand on the night such behavior first
appears to encourage her in the right direction. If further corporeal
punishment is needed, you can administer it later."

"When will we marry?" I asked.

At this point, I must state I felt no apprehension concerning my impending
nuptials to Jane Marie. Father's discussion heightened my awareness of
relationships with the fairer sex and shed a bright light on my intended and
her behavior. I realized she was most definitely interested in me as a man
and that her flirtatious teasing, which started as early as I could
remember, had increased to the point of being intolerable only lately.
Clearly, she was focusing her feminine wiles on me in hopes of bringing me
to her side at the altar.

I, of course, had responded as would be anticipated, with increasing mental
frustration and a growing awareness in my genitals that she was a woman I
would enjoy, for Jane Marie was a lovely and fiery girl, high-spirited and
quick witted as well as charming when she wished to be. I had spent many
lovely hours with her, which my memory hid as her teasing became unbearable.
As I reexamined her actions toward me and my reactions to her, I knew those
happy times would be multiplied upon completion of our nuptials.

"Our reason for visiting Whitlands is threefold, Robert. First, of course,
is to attend Edward's funeral. Second is to set the date of your marriage to
Jane Marie if I can assuage your objections to marrying her.

"I have no objections, Father. I think Jane Marie will make me an excellent
wife."

He looked askance at me. "Oh? You said she was a shrew."

"I have reconsidered and I was wrong."

"I was serious about your taking her in hand and providing the guidance she
needs."

"I know and I will, but I see her differently now. I think she will welcome
my husbandly requests."

"You've made a good decision, Robert. Jane Marie does love you and you love
her more than you realize," he said warmly. He rushed the horses again. "The
third reason we are visiting Whitlands is to acquire three slaves, a woman
named Patience and her two daughters. You know Pearly Bright was my
mistress."

I felt the warmth of a blush rising in me. "Yes, sir," I said.

"She told me about that night you saw her coming from my bedroom and what
she said to you."

"You knew?" popped from me.

"Yes, and I waited for you to ask me for a girl of your own. You never did."

"I thought you would be appalled," I replied.

"No. In fact, Jonah and I had our eyes on one or two we thought might be
suitable for you."

"I wish I had asked," I said dejectedly.

"That's water under the bridge now. Patience was Edward's mistress. I am
acquiring her for several reasons. Foremost in my mind is that she is a
beautiful and sensual woman well skilled in pleasing a man and eager to use
those skills for his enjoyment. But foremost in Edward's mind was to remove
her and her daughters from Whitlands and any vengeance Mary Elizabeth might
work upon them. Patience was a thorn in Mary Elizabeth's side that festered
mightily."

"She knew about his mistress?"

"Yes, and so did Jane Marie. Women of our class expect their husbands to
take mistresses, whether from the readily available slaves or some white
trollop they stumble upon, so they turn a blind eye to our dalliances and
accept without discourse our lovers, even if they are within the confines of
their own house and among its servants. But there are unspoken rules we all
understand and those rules must be followed. Edward did not follow those
rules and he suffered the consequences. That was his mistake and a mistake
you should not make in your own marriage. Mary Elizabeth's heart hardened
from his flaunting of Patience. Bad leads to bad. As she hardened, Edward
turned more to Patience rather than dealing with his own wife, increasing
her concerns and multiplying her discontent like fertilizer grows crops."

I knew Patience. She was a house slave at Whitlands, an unusually striking
woman with an air of unrestrained sensuality. As I remembered my many visits
there, the interplay between Mr. Whitfield, his wife, and his mistress
slowly became apparent.

"What are the rules?" I asked.

"That's a particularly good question and a hard one to answer, for in each
household husband and wife modify and adapt those rules to fit their own
peculiarities. Some base rules do apply. You should never flaunt your
mistress or tease or taunt your wife with her, and never compare the two.
You do not ignore your wife or her needs. Your wife must always believe she
is the first and most important woman in your life. The base rule for the
wife is to never ask if you have a mistress, or question your absences from
her own bed, or raise an issue about the subtle interchange sexual
familiarity always brings. If she violates this rule and does question your
relationship, you must deny it, deny it with all your powers to persuade,
even if she finds you in bed together and the proof is undeniable."

"So you lie to her even when you both know it is a lie and she accepts it as
truth."

"Exactly."

"Strange," I said.

"Perhaps, but true. Edward violated those rules and so did Mary Elizabeth.
They both suffered the consequences. But it was Edward's awful flaunting
that was the ultimate wedge between them."

"How did he flaunt the rules?" I asked.

"The final split was to lay Patience down on the dinner table and take her
there as Mary Elizabeth sat seething at the other end and a guest watched in
horror. That was unforgivable and a terrible humiliation not only for Mary
Elizabeth but for Patience and the guest."

"Were you the guest?"

"Yes, I was, to my mortification. Later, when we two were alone, I bitterly
chastised Edward for his conduct, but he was unrepentant as to Mary
Elizabeth, although he was sorely saddened by his action's impact on his
relationship with both Patience and me.

"That is something else you must remember, Robert. Your mistress may be a
common girl or a slave over whom you have the power of life and death, but
she is, first and foremost, a woman. She knows, as do you, her children will
not bear your name except in the most queer of circumstances and her
presence in your life is subject to an abrupt and uncontrollable ending
because your relationship is of and for the flesh and not for fortune and
family and name.

"She knows you will not call for her in the brightness of parties and social
occasions but in the dimness of night when she comes to you stealthily, so
she must know her importance to you as a harbinger of joy and heat and
pleasures of the flesh and believe those pleasures are great and highly
valued by you. More importantly, she must know you care for her."

"I know I have no experience in these matters, but it seems to me having a
mistress and not caring for her makes no sense," I said.

"I agree, but not all men do. There are men who will take a woman,
particularly a slave woman, and toss her aside like rubbish when their
pleasure is complete. That robs them and the women of some of the greatest
pleasures, those that only come from a deeper communion than mere flesh."

Father did not speak for some time as he patiently waited for me to digest
all he had said. When he believed I was ready, he spoke again.

"Patience has two daughters, Ebony, who is two years older than you, and
Fancy, who was born the same week as Jane Marie and, like her, is
approaching sixteen. Edward fathered those girls. He knew when he died Mary
Elizabeth could make their lives a living Hell. He didn't want that for
them, for he may have loved them in his own way. I promised him I would
provide for them and see to their needs."

I remembered Ebony. She was a fine looking girl who had been blessed in her
physical attributes. I did not remember Fancy.

"Patience will become my mistress. A man needs a woman in his life and she
is a striking woman."

"Why did you give up Pearly Bright?" I asked.

"It was time. She was ready for a husband and Micah sorely wanted her."

"Father, is..."

"Her child mine?" he said completing my thought. "No, he isn't. I have only
one other child, Felicity, Eliza's eldest."

Eliza had been a house slave, occupying the quarters Pearly Bright later
occupied and which now stood empty. She was our chief seamstress, managing
other slaves and providing all the clothing worn at Ironwood. Her husband,
James, was one of Jonah's trusted assistants, who would be entitled
"assistant overseer" if such titles were given.

"If something happens to me, Robert, I want you to provide for Felicity and
Eliza and James and their other children."

"Yes, Father," I said.

"We have complete control over our slaves. We may buy and sell or kill and
maim or do whatever we wish with them, but they are humans, Robert, and only
a fool acts without consideration of their feelings. There are too many
fools in the Carolinas and, I tell you, we may well rue the day we enslaved
them."

"I understand," I replied. I think I did comprehend what he said, at least
on a primitive level. While his discourse explained in good measure his
principles in managing our slaves, it also raised other questions, one of
which I voiced. "May I ask...I mean...did you, in taking Eliza or Pearly
Bright to your bed...was that act itself contrary to their feelings?"

"I didn't force them. They came eagerly to me. But we were talking about
Patience and her daughters," he said, changing the subject. "Patience will
be my mistress and live in the quarters formerly occupied by Pearly Bright.
I am giving her daughters to you."

My head jerked around and I asked incredulously, "What did you say?"

He chuckled. "I'm going to give Ebony and Fancy to you. They will be your
slaves."

"Mine?"

"Yes. Yours."

There are, as I was fully cognizant, passages into manhood that each, in its
own way, signals one's growth and development. I remembered well events in
my own life of that nature, such as the acquisition and mastering of
firearms and my first horse. Owning my own slave was such an event. I knew
instinctively it was all preparation for my marriage and, eventually, my own
plantation.

While my mind pondered the grander scheme of  wife, children, and land, a
part of me stirred at the thoughts of my slave girl providing the rich and
essential services that Pearly Bright once provided my father.

Father, ever observant of those around him, apparently read my thoughts.

"Both Ebony and Fancy know of the relationship between their mother and
Edward, and they know he is their father. They all know they became our
slaves the moment Edward died and we are arriving to transport them back to
Ironwood." He hesitated a moment. "I have been told Patience has explained
to her daughters the nuances of those liaisons between master and slave and
what they, as women, might expect their master to request of them."

Infuriatingly, he ceased speaking until I could stand it no more. "And?" I
demanded.

"I'm told Ebony joyfully anticipates your approach."

"And Fancy?"

He laughed. "She was less eager, but she is younger and still a virgin while
her sister coupled with Edward and at least two of the bucks. Ebony is a
trollop one might say, but her experience can be put to good use in your own
learning. Enjoy Ebony for now and be patient with Fancy. I suspect she will
come around."

"Good Lord. Two slave girls and a wife," I muttered.

Father laughed and slapped me on the back. He popped the reins hard and
hurried us toward Whitlands.

My mind reeled with my thoughts bouncing from this subject to that like a
staggering drunk. Here was I, who awakened this morning a lad with fleeting
cares but who would go to sleep tonight a man who was betrothed, slave
owning, and facing the responsibility of inheriting not one, but two,
significant farms.

Other thoughts flittered through my mind-thoughts of women, although the
actual woman changed from Jane Marie to Ebony to Pearly Bright to others I
had observed, back and forth in maddening fashion, leaving me with an ache
in my trousers and a spinning head.

Father and I continued our discussion randomly, primarily with him answering
questions popping from me. He reiterated his comments about the subject of
slavery, again pointing out the dismal conditions and treatment at
Riverwood, particularly as they compared to the slaves' situation at
Ironwood. He voiced his intention to raise the slave standards at Whitlands
and assigned the task his first priority.

We talked more of Mother, who, as I had reasoned, was indeed an older
Elizabeth Father had loved mightily and still loved despite the passage of
time. We talked about my sister and what he hoped for her. We talked of
planting and crops and labor utilization.

And we talked of Jane Marie Whitfield, who was to become my wife, and of her
mother, Mary Elizabeth, who would be my mother-in-law and, therefore, my
burden.

Father more fully explained his agreement with Mr. Whitfield, which they had
reduced to writing in a legal contract. Father would immediately take over
management of Whitlands, with the profits inuring partly to him and partly
to Mrs. Whitfield and Jane Marie as provided in Edward's will. Mrs.
Whitfield suffered a financial detriment from the harshness separating her
from her husband. Edward had, no doubt out of spite, left his wife
dependent, in part, on the goodwill of his daughter and her future husband
for her security. Father counseled me on how to address those issues with
the Whitfield ladies should they arise.

The sun was gone from the horizon and the heat of the day was lessening when
Father turned the buckboard into the main gate at Whitlands. He stopped the
rig and said, "I'll ride from here."

"Thank you, Father," I said.

"You're welcome. I know you will make me proud."

He mounted Liberty and led us down the darkened path to Whitfield, which
would, one day in the immediate future, be my home, and where today resided
Jane Marie, my wife-to-be, and the winsome slave, Ebony, with whom I would
lie that very night.

To be continued

-- 
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