Chained by Fate - Part 11
I could barely walk when the day was over, having taken significant beatings between my legs for repeatedly missing my quota. It was usually just a couple of vicious slaps across the breasts, but as I missed the quota by such a large margin, I had to suffer the full consequences.
I couldn't let them punish Barbara anymore, so I had to keep pushing what I dug from the wall towards her side. Barbara protested with angry, but silent gestures when the overseer looked the other way, but I insisted.
Of course, it didn't fool Master Borisov, who replaced Master Zinovieff for the second shift and had spent more time in this mine than that sadistic bastard. But he didn't care as long as the gang as a whole could meet its quota.
When he noticed what I was doing, he just shrugged and remarked, "I know you are quite a digger, you little mole. With that ugly monkey face of yours, we'd have hanged you a long time ago, if you weren't useful otherwise. So what gives?"
He grabbed Barbara by her chin and turned her face in different directions as he added, "So you got a fancy for this thing, is that it?" I didn't answer him because it was more of such a monologue you would do when your dog is around than any real conversation.
After inspecting Barbara's features, he released her chin and smirked, "Yeah, this one looks alright for a chink. I'll give you that. But what are you going to do with it, chimp? Make out or something?" He condescendingly patted my bald head several times before walking away.
You know what? I am going to protect her no matter what. That's something I can do, an ugly and worthless chink I am. I made up my mind at that moment.
After the overseers withdrew to their quarter after securing us for the night, Barbara confronted me, "Why did you do that?" with her whisper trembling with emotion.
"Don't think about it, Barb. I just had to do it." I swallowed the words "for you," as I whispered her back, feigning casualness.
"Thank you, Siss." I felt the burning pain on my shredded skin somehow subsiding with her soothing voice.
Opening our legs towards the ceiling, we stared into the darkness in silence for a while.
With her slender arms and shoulders, Barbara couldn't compete with other ill-nourished, but more muscular girls like me. Chosen by natural selection to thrive, or at least to perish more slowly, those surviving girls had such strength and endurance suitable for living like moles while digging holes underground.
Barbara may become like them someday if she survives. And I'm going to turn that 'if' into a certainty. For what? I don't know. She may suffer a few more years because of me until she inevitably expires and thrown into the incinerator. But I can't stand the idea of her slender body hanging from the ceiling. No, I can't let it happen! I just want to hear her sweet voice at night, and have her by my side when I suffer by day. That was the best definition of 'happiness' I could imagine in this hell hole.
"They wouldn't have beaten us like that if we were like Raisin, would they?" Barbara asked suddenly.
"I'm pretty sure C-grade girls would also get whipped from time to time, Barb."
"Even between the legs?" she shuddered as she asked.
"Even between the legs," I repeated matter-of-factly.
I could sense a hint of dread and pain from her voice. It must have left her quite a significant mental scar to be punished in such unthinkable ways. But I know Barbara is a strong girl, if not physically so. Otherwise, she would have become a trainwreck already, from all the abuses she had to suffer since yesterday. I don't think she had ever imagined a world where a girl can be ordered to spread her legs and beaten until she bleeds before.
But she somehow survived and even managed to maintain an almost cheerful mood. I wondered how much of it could be attributed to my presence. After all, a naked girl who's been dancing under a whip doesn't turn cheerful without a reason.
"Then how are they different from us?" Babara broke the gloomy silence.
"They have hairs, haven't they?" I imagined Barbara's face with a few different hairstyles as I continued, "But yes, they are still 'work slaves' like us, deemed too ugly to be used for a sexual purpose."
"Do you think I look ugly?" Barbara asked hesitantly.
"No! You are the prettiest girl I've ever seen, Barb. ...in this mine, I mean."
There was no answer. Probably Barbara felt embarrassed by my compliment or was secretly smiling in the dark, I couldn't tell.
Most C-grade girls are workers like us, but they have less offensive features to their white owner's eyes. As such, they were employed mainly for any manual labour which needs to be performed in a public space, like mopping the floor of a subway station or sweeping the streets, for example. They were also kept naked and chained at all times, but they were allowed some autonomy, unlike us. So they don't need permission to take a pee or rest, for instance, but it wasn't too uncommon to see a C-grade girl tied to a lamp post or splayed on the sideway and brutally whipped for abusing that freedom.
"What about the B-grade girls? Can we become one?" Barbara asked with envy, as if it was some celebrity actress or a singer whom we were talking about.
"No, I don't think so." Feeling pity for her desperation, I explained calmly, as a girl would to her younger sister, "They usually reevaluate a slave girl's grade every few years, but she never goes up in the rank, Barb."
"Why not?" she insisted.
"Do you think your breasts would look fuller if they get whipped for a few more years?"
"You have a point, Siss." Barbara grudgingly conceded.
"But you are as beautiful as most B-grade girls I've seen, Barb. I really don't know why they gave you the D-grade."
"You think so?" Her voice somewhat brightened.
"I do." I could almost see her smiling. Imagining Barbara's peach coloured cheeks in my mind, I continued, "They are basically sex toys, and they also serve as maids, Barb."
"So, they are prostitutes?" Barbara asked disapprovingly.
"No, a prostitute would get paid at least. But you know, they can wear some clothes."
"Really? I envy them then, Siss," Barbara sighed and deplored demurely, "I can gladly be a prostitute if I can wear panties, at least."
"But they don't have to give us anything to get between our legs, Barb."
Barbara remained silent, and I immediately regretted reminding her of the cruel reality.
"What kind of clothes those B-grade girls wear?" Barbara broke the silence eventually, with her renewed interest of those superior girls she cannot be.
"It depends. They still can't wear anything to cover their brands which is against the law. However, they are often allowed to wear a short skirt or loincloth for decency when they go outside, " I replied as I shifted my body to get a more comfortable position. Feeling the heavy, rusted iron pressing upon my neck, I added, "Oh, and they also wear fancy leather collars too."
"Like those BDSM people do?" Barbara asked me.
"BDSM people? Who are they?" I asked as I tried to push the collar down with my chin.
"When I was in South Africa, I met a girl who said she was a slave. And she always wore a collar like that," Barbara explained.
"Do they have slaves in South Africa, too?" I asked in a surprised voice.
I have never imagined there would be slavery like we have in another country before. Maybe they are enslaving black girls instead of Asians? We had a small number of people with an African origin before the Slavery Act. But I heard they were just killed instead of being enslaved like us, deemed to be unworthy even for a D-grade slave. I feel pity for them since they look even more different than our owners of the superior race. If they call us 'monkeys' or 'chimps' for how we look, how would they treat those black girls? Does BDSM mean Black Domesticated Slave Mammal or something?
"No, not really," Barbara interrupted my reverie and continued, "She said she became a slave because she likes it."
"Why would anyone want to be a slave?" I raised my eyebrows, thoroughly puzzled by Barbara's answer.
"I have no idea. I wasn't that close to her anyway," Barbara paused for a moment, apparently trying to remember the times when she could hang around with her friends before she continued, "But she said there are more people like her, and they call themselves with that name."
"They are crazy," I shook my head in disbelief. The heavy chains rattled on the hard floor, emitting a shrill noise into the darkness.
"Yeah, Laura was always a bit crazy in her head," Barbara giggled, and I smiled back, even though she couldn't see my face. We continued chattering like that for a while, occasionally bursting into a suppressed laughter like schoolgirls.
I felt genuinely happy at that moment. I didn't care about staying up so late anymore. Why should I care if would get a few more stripes for missing my quota? My body is already done for good, and my deformed sex or shredded breasts wouldn't look any worse if they get a few more beatings. But my mind, on the other hand... do I still have such a thing, a worthless, ugly bald monkey that I am? Can a filthy chink like me still feel anything other than animal instincts? Do I really deserve to giggle and even feel... happy?
Barbara suddenly fell silent, "Siss, I think I'm bleeding," she spoke hesitantly after a while.
"What? Are you hurt?" I startled at Barbara's words and jerked my face towards her.
"No, I mean... I think I started a period," Barbara confessed embarrassingly, "Oh, Siss. What should I do?"
"No way!" I could only express my surprise.
It was because I knew that they sterilized all slave girls before they leave their training facility unless they are A-grade ones. Aside from the obvious reason of making it easier to use their sex without undesirable consequences, it was also meant to prevent more inferior girls from spreading their defective genes.
I heard that B-grade girls get their womb surgically removed before they were sold to their first owners. The reason why they performed full hysterectomy instead of just cutting the tubes was that they need to have the ovaries intact, which were still necessary organs for the B-grade slaves to function. Also, being domestically employed, it would be inconvenient if they still menstruate. So, removing their uterus while preserving ovaries served that purpose perfectly.
The only downside was that it took time and money to perform such a surgery. As such, lower grade girls like me just get their ovaries fried with an X-ray machine modified explicitly for that purpose. The process was mostly painless, fortunately, but many girls suffered various side-effects after that, both physical and mental ones.
With their hair completely shaven and robbed of their ability to bear children, they cease to see themselves as a girl, but some freak which deserved abhorrence and hatred they get. With their mind moulded that way, it was only a short hop from there to accept that they are just apes with usable sex organs and muscles.
Aside from its psychological effects, it also has various physical symptoms which can manifest in different manners and with varying severity among the girls. Some experienced intense cramps even though she no longer menstruates, which a few girls even grew facial hairs.
And while girls without ovaries can still be used for a sexual purpose, it typically renders them dry and less responsive. But we were deemed incapable of providing sexual attraction even without facial hairs, anyway. As such, our sex organs were mostly used for abuse than for lovemaking - they rarely cared if our sex was wet or dry when they shoved things down there. Also, the irradiation process is known to increase the risk of cancer significantly. But, those C and D-grade girls don't live long anyway, so there was no point in worrying about such health risks.
I didn't know what to say about Barbara's condition. There was not much I could do for her problem, that was for sure. But I dreaded what additional degradation she will face tomorrow, being the only girl who was still capable of wearing the sign of her fertility on her thighs.
Besides, now I felt some strange emotion about Barbara. Now she wasn't just closer to a proper human being than I can ever be, but she also turned out to be a fully functional woman, capable of being loved and procreate. Why would such a girl harbour any emotion for a sterilized chimpanzee like me other than contempt and revulsion? Maybe she was just using me to get enough information to survive? Maybe I was a fool to take the beatings for her when she despises me just much as the overseers do?
"Shhh! I think someone is coming," Barbara's nervous voice brought me back from my reverie. I could see a faint glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. Soon, I began to hear murmurings and approaching footsteps.
"Quiet! Just pretend you are sleeping!" I whispered to Barbara urgently and closed my eyes, feeling my thoughts running wild in my mind with questions and fear.
(To be continued)