Black Master, White Slave Read online

  When Pegeen returned to her senses, Josiah was lying looking at her. His lips were smiling, but the smile did not reach his eyes. Pegeen forced herself to struggle up on one elbow.

  “Let me…” she murmured, reaching for his engorged member which, amazingly enough, seemed larger than before, pulsing and hungry-looking.

  He swept her hand away. “Later. We don’t have to rush things. This was new for you, wasn’t it?”

  Pegeen laid back and looked up at the mosquito netting that surrounded the bed like a cloud. “I’ve never felt like that before. Thank you.”

  “Why do you thank me? I did what I wanted. I always will.”

  “But I enjoyed it.”

  “For now,” he said bitterly, and Pegeen had the strangest feeling he was not talking to her, but to someone else.

  Because she didn’t know what to say, Pegeen reached over and rubbed his chest as one would a cat, her hand against his dark skin looking like milk spilled on the ground. Beneath her palm the few hairs on his chest were like kinky bits of wire, while his nipples were as hard as tiny pebbles. Without knowing why, she rose on one elbow and sucked on him as he had on her, pulling the tiny nubbins into her mouth and scraping them gently with her teeth.

  For a moment it appeared he would brush her away, then feeling took over and he leaned back with a groan, his penis enlarging even more and throbbing dangerously.

  Pegeen rose on her knees and leaned across to his other nipple, her red hair spilling over him like flame. Her hand slipped down over the flat hardness of his stomach, past the scant sprinkling of wiry hairs until she could grasp the root of him. His balls were high and tight, pulled hard against his body, but they quivered as she tickled them. Then she wrapped her hand around the blue-black shaft of his engorged penis and slowly, so agonizingly slowly, began to stroke until it trembled dangerously.

  He wiggled under her ministrations now, inarticulate groans coming from his throat. “Straddle me,” he managed to gasp, helping lift her until she knelt over him. He lifted her hips and brought her down swiftly on his engorged organ, bringing cries of pleasure from them both. Above him she writhed as if impaled upon a spear, while below her he bucked and thrust like a madman.

  Pegeen finished first, giving a wild shout of pleasure and falling across his chest. Josiah lasted a few more thrusts, easily lifting her unresponsive weight until he too found his climax, exploded, then fell as dead. For a moment they both lay there, gasping for breath. Only when she tried to rise on shaky limbs did Pegeen realize that Josiah’s arm was around her, holding her down.

  “Relax,” he murmured. His eyes were closed and in the faint light of the bedside candle he looked hardly more than a boy.

  “But I’m crushing you…”

  He gave a breathy chuckle. “You? You weigh nothing. Just lie still.”

  Pegeen did, letting herself go limp against his chest. Beneath her cheek she could hear his heart beating, his breath rushing in and out; both sounded strong and regular, even when they slowed to normal.

  At last he gave a half snort and woke from his semi-sleep, then gently rolled Pegeen off him. Waiting, she had been anticipating dismissal; she had actually enjoyed the unusual closeness. Normally as soon as the master had finished she was sent away. Being held afterward was nice.

  “Time for sleep, girl.”

  Obediently Pegeen sat up and slid to the edge of the bed, reaching for the mosquito netting.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Going to bed, sir. You said it was time for sleep.”

  “I didn’t tell you to go. I told you to sleep.” For the first time his eyes warmed with humor. “I might want you again before morning, and I have no intention of traipsing up to your room again.”

  Pegeen stared. A master who wanted a slave to sleep in his bed beside him? All night? She had never heard of such a thing, but still the idea sounded very appealing. She tucked back the netting and lay down next to him. He curled his arm around her and cradled her head on his shoulder, then twisted around to blow out the bed-candle. The darkness rushed in, vaguely slivered with the light from a struggling moon. She had not lain cuddled against anyone like this since the night before her mother had been sold. It was oddly comforting.

  Giving her shoulder an absent little pat, Josiah yawned, then a few breaths later began to snore. He was a prodigious snorer; Pegeen wondered that the glass in the window frames did not rattle. Only after a while did he shift positions slightly – without releasing her, she realized – and his snoring changed to a simple deep breathing.

  How long would this last, she wondered, before he tired of her novelty and sold her? If anyone would buy her, that is; she didn’t know if a white master would touch her knowing she had belonged to and been used by a Negro. What if she started a baby? As much and as frequently as he came it surely wouldn’t be long before she got knocked.

  Pegeen was surprised it hadn’t happened more. Of course, she had been just a child when they started using her, too young to breed, but time had fixed that. Old Mr. Winterborough hadn’t really liked the natural way, probably because he couldn’t do it very well. Her mouth and hands had been his joy and he had seldom indulged in more normal pleasures.

  Young Mr. Higgins had enjoyed the normal way with more enthusiasm than skill, but he had been puny and undersized; his baby hadn’t even lived inside her long enough to be properly born. Pegeen wondered if his fine lady wife had had any more luck carrying his seed than she.

  She might be knocked now, she realized. It took a while to know if you were, and Mr. Cavanaugh’s seed was bound to be powerful. It was only a matter of time until she was, and then what? Even if he kept her and the child, assuming it lived, how long would it be before he sold off one or the other? Watching her mother being sold had been bad enough and her baby being born dead had almost killed her; she couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have a child sold off.

  What choice, she decided bleakly, did she have?

  Whimpering softly so as not to disturb the master, Pegeen cried herself to sleep.

  Chapter Five

  Josiah Cavanaugh had learned to sleep lightly. The white slave girl’s tears were nearly silent, but the moisture on his chest disturbed him. Still, he lay unmoving. Even a slave deserved the illusion of privacy occasionally.

  Especially, he thought, one who had worked so hard to please him. In spite of her years of slavery she was still young, still innocent to an extent. There were no marks of the lash on her back; apparently she had never worked in a house with a jealous mistress. Those could be the worst for using a whip on a pretty young slave who caught the master’s eye.

  Unless it was the master who caught one of his womenfolk with one of the plantation bucks.

  Josiah frowned. A master could romp from one end of the quarters to another and use every female he saw without an eyebrow being raised, but let a white woman even look cross-eyed at a Negro man – or vice versa – and blood flowed.

  As if thought could stimulate flesh the old scars on his shoulders began to ache.

  This girl was not Marianne.

  Idly he lifted a lock of her hair and twisted it in his fingers; against his dark skin it looked like splashes of blood. It was a lighter, more fiery red than he remembered Marianne’s being, but it was still red.

  Aside from the genetic happenstance of red hair and pale skin, this waif was nothing like Marianne.

  Marianne.

  Half woman, half sprite, a creature of sunshine and laughter.

  Marianne.

  A creature of unbelievable darkness and treachery with a soul long ago sold to the Devil.

  Even now she shone in his memory and haunted his nightmares.

  She had been the pampered daughter of wealthy parents, affianced to the pampered son of wealthy parents. This pathetic child Josiah now held had been born in poverty, swept away from her native land and sold into slavery.

  And, thanks to a moment of madness, she was his.


  Josiah’s sex, limp and still sticky from their coupling, began to stir. It grew and thickened, feasting on the memory of her soft compliance, the warmth within her. He considered waking her to stimulate him even further and enjoy another round of poking, but did nothing. So far her novelty had brought performances from him that were remarkable even to him, but he was no longer a young man. Years of almost total celibacy had gotten him out of practice. He didn’t want this girl to witness his humiliation if he couldn’t perform.

  Why not? She wasn’t Marianne.

  For a moment memories of a life that he thought buried years before invaded his thoughts. Josiah had been so proud to be the assistant to Mr. Smollet’s overseer. He had never known that a black man like him could be anything but a field hand like all the other darkies. Even the house servants were high yellow, so much so that for a long time Josiah had thought them white. Mrs. Smollet, he found out later, was from the North and unused to black folk; she had insisted Mr. Smollet staff the house with those as close to white as he could manage. She pretended she didn’t even see the dark faces in the fields.

  Marianne had been different.

  Born and raised on Whispering Oaks, she had been surrounded by black folks all her life, even if it was at a distance. Josiah wondered if it had been that distance on which her mother had insisted that fostered her insatiable curiosity.

  Josiah had been barely fifteen when Mr. Smollet had first taken notice of him. Clever and intelligent in spite of being unschooled, Josiah had almost single-handedly improved the irrigation of the south fields. Mr. Smollet was a clever man, as well, too much of one to let a potentially valuable inheritance rot away as a mere field hand. He had apprenticed young Josiah to the overseer, helping him learn to read and cipher himself.

  Marianne was a year or two older and just returned from a fancy finishing school in Philadelphia. She soon found excuses to visit her father in the overseer’s office. Before long she was waylaying Josiah in the orchard that separated the main house from the quarters. Not long after that they were meeting in the old spring house.

  Marianne Smollet had been the prettiest thing Josiah had ever seen, prettier even than he imagined the angels themselves to be. That she had even noticed him was exciting. That she wanted to be alone with him was terrifying.

  The first time she exposed her creamy white breasts to him he thought he would explode.

  The first time she touched his painful hard-on he did. Instead of being shocked or disgusted, she was amused, laughing as she said he was bigger and better made than any of the men she had seen in Philadelphia.

  She let him touch her – suck her tantalizing breasts, play with the soft moistness hidden where her legs met. Then she would put her head into his lap, her red hair spilling like liquid flame over his dark thighs, and take him into her mouth, sucking him until he erupted deep in her throat. She would swallow every drop. She did, she said often with a funny little laugh, like to be neat.

  The only thing she denied him was the final, natural culmination. She would not let him put himself inside her no matter how much he begged.

  “I don’t want to have no darkie baby,” she said more than once. “Besides, I’m going to my husband a virgin bride.”

  That had always been a point of pride with her. Once or twice she had permitted Josiah to penetrate her behind region, but that only enflamed rather than satisfied him. No amount of pleading, however, could change her mind. She did unbend enough to let him kiss her private area on rare occasions, though seeing how much he enjoyed it she withheld the privilege until he had begged enough. Josiah was sure that she enjoyed it as much as he, but convinced that she liked his begging for it more.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Josiah felt as if he had been pulled back suddenly from a place far away. For a moment his own bedroom looked alien. The little white slave girl – he couldn’t remember her name – lay curled against him, her face pale and tight.

  She wasn’t Marianne.

  “I thought you were asleep.”

  “I woke up. You were squeezing me so tight… I thought you wanted something, and you looked so angry. Have I displeasured you?”

  Immediately Josiah released his grip. The imprint of his fingertips were like dark red bruises against her pale skin.

  “No,” he said with an unaccustomed gentleness. She wasn’t Marianne. “You pleasured me just fine. I was just thinking. Did I hurt you?”

  Her eyes widened. “No, sir.”

  “I’m only an ogre in business, little one. You have nothing to fear from me.”

  Her green eyes blinked in disbelief.

  “Now go back to sleep.”

  “Here?”

  “Yes. Here.”

  “Who was she?”

  It was Josiah’s turn to stare. Slaves never asked questions of their masters save on assigned tasks at hand. Occasionally a very old and valued slave who had known the master from childhood might venture a personal question, but it would still be an impertinence. For a newly purchased bed slave to get so intimate was unheard of. She knew it, too; her face was suddenly tight with fear and her eyes opened wide.

  “What makes you think it was a she?”

  “Men… powerful men like you… don’t get so upset over business. You can handle business. Besides, you were muttering ‘damn her’ over and over again.” She gulped and looked up at him with a pitiful courage. “Are you going to punish me?”

  Josiah forced a smile. In some places a slave would be whipped for speaking so openly, so her fear was very real. “No. I’m not going to punish you for that. How do you know so much about men?”

  She shrugged and looked away. “You just learn.”

  “How many men have you known, girl?”

  Pegeen shrugged and looked away.

  Josiah felt a twinge of curiosity. “I asked you a question.”

  “A lot. Mr. Higgins used to… to loan me out. He gambled, you see, and he wasn’t very good at it. Some of his friends liked having a white girl who wasn’t a common whore.” Her mouth formed the last two words reluctantly, as if they tasted bad.

  Her words were hesitant; she weren’t proud of it. Well, Josiah reasoned, who could be? But it was not this child’s doing. Despite her undoubtedly many sexual encounters she was still very innocent. But there had to be more; Josiah knew it.

  “Tell me the rest.”

  There was real fear in her look, fear and shame. “He always tried to be the best host. When his friends came to lie with me, he’d give them a special bedroom upstairs in the big house. Then he’d go next door and – and watch through a special hole in the wall. Then when they’d fall asleep, I’d have to go to him. He was always real excited by it. He’d take me and I’d have to tell him how much better he was than they had been. He wasn’t though, not really, but I had to tell him he was.”

  “Poor thing,” Josiah said absently. He touched her face gently with his fingertips, his skin enhancing his darkness against her paleness. “Life hasn’t been easy for you, has it?”

  “Is life ever easy? Some folks just has it harder than others, that’s all.”

  Josiah sighed. An epitaph for the world, and coming from an uneducated young woman doomed to a hard life. Her voice was small and had the intentional flatness of a slave careful not to give any offense to the master, in even something as small as tone of voice. While her face and coloring proclaimed she was Irish, no trace of that country’s lilt remained in her voice; a blind man would have said she was a darkie, plantation born and raised.

  He had once sounded like that, Josiah realized. It had taken years for him to learn to speak like the masters and still in moments of stress he had been known to slip.

  The girl gave a soft chuckle. Her fingers had slid down past Josiah’s stomach and found him stiffening. “And then there’s some that stays hard.”

  Rising to her knees she put her mouth on him, licking and sucking until he had swollen to painful rigidity.

  “Lie
down,” he said in a voice rough with passion. He could barely wait until she turned on her back to slide into the damp softness of her. He didn’t last long; he made only half a dozen strokes until his puny orgasm exploded, a poor thing that would have shamed him had it been the first one of the evening.

  He was astonished. Three times in one night! He hadn’t done that since the days of his young manhood, repeatedly fucking his hand in strained silence and hoping none of the other dormitory bucks could hear him.

  It couldn’t have been good for her, he realized, but it didn’t matter. Satiated, he couldn’t think of anything at the moment but sleep. Tomorrow he had to meet with the shipping company about getting his cotton to England; he had to be sharp for that.

  Already half-asleep, he rolled off Pegeen, but remembered to pull her close before he drifted off completely. She might not be Marianne, but she was a soft, compliant body next to his, and oddly enough, he found that pleasant.

  Chapter Six

  Pegeen had taken care to be gone before the master stirred in the morning. The night had been one of the best she had ever known in her life, but she knew that sometimes the masters regretted being so candid and open with a slave. She wanted to do nothing to jeopardize her position here. She wanted to stay with Josiah Cavanaugh.

  With that in mind she washed all over before she dressed, sorry that her new muslin dresses were so plain. She piled her hair on top of her head, then put her cap on far back and pulled out a few tendrils the way the young mistresses in the islands did. Her hair curled and lay in fetching spirals of red against her white skin.

  Not that it did any good. Old Ellen teased her about being so high and mighty as to bedizen herself like the Whore of Babylon (whoever that was – none of her masters had been particularly religious), but young Bob, the half-witted boy who served as a lad-of-all-work in the house, stared at her like a sugary treat. So did William the seneschal, who answered the door and held the key to the silver and wine cabinets as well as picking up slaves from the market and doing whatever else the master needed done, though his hungry looks were discreetly hidden.