The Dark Journey
Chapter 19 - Slavery: First Run
Drawn into the web of deceit
Believing all the lies and ignoring the hate
Eyes blinded by relief and warmth
I enter the place where all hope fails
Chained by my own needs
Lashed by his tongue and his whip
Corrupted by his wants and desires
I make my escape attempt, too soon, too late
Hung by my own stunted pride
Cleverness turned into folly and foolishness
Blood clouding my sight like a mist
Hope fails again to shine through on me
Despair and debauchery fill the hours
Hating the stinking remains of myself
Dead yet living out the nightmare existence
Forever rotting away where all hope fails
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From Eureka I decided to head back east towards Redding. Time didn't seem to have much meaning for me, but at some point along the way I turned 18. By September I had made my way to the Oregon border. I spent a few weeks in Ashland, doing some business and panhandling. Then moved on to Medford, following pretty much the same routine there.
I got busted for hooking in Grants Pass, and when it turned out that I had no identification and I refused to give my parents' names and information, I was found in contempt of court and guilty of solicitation. They gave me 30 days in the county lock up. When I got out of there, I was approached by the cop who busted me. He told me he would give me a place to stay for a little 'compensation' and he would make sure that I didn't get arrested again as long as I stayed there. I thought that living with a cop would give me some protection against Mark, should he come looking for me, so I accepted the offer.
This would turn out to be the worst mistake of my life.
For the next couple of weeks things seemed to be going good. March was very cold and I was glad to have the shelter of a real house around me. My host, John "Jaker" Ralston was a very big man. He was about 6' 2" and weighed I would guess about 240 to 250 pounds. At first I was glad of his obvious strength, because I was still very paranoid about Mark finding me. Sex with him was always rough, but I coped with it and figured it was a small price to pay for protection.
Things began to take a wrong turn not long after I moved in though. Perhaps if I had run sooner I could have gotten away from him, but I didn't. The first time he hit me I should have gone. Hindsight is 20/20 as they say.
The first time, when I balked at allowing him to sodomize me, and he hit me hard across the back of the head with his night stick. He did what he wanted anyway, and then used the same night stick again, in a different way.
The next day I thought about running, and that was the whole problem: I thought about it, and thought and thought until it was too late to actually do it. He seemed a little surprised when he got home that I was still there. Even commented that he had figured he would be out chasing me down tonight. He was very good at chasing people down, he said, he had done it hundreds of times before. He said it was like a game of hide and seek, except while the prey thought they were doing the hiding, he was lying in wait for them and when they made a wrong move, which they always did, WHAP! GOTCHA!
He told me that he could pin a person with any crime he wanted and make it stick. If someone crossed him, he could put them away for a very long time. I wasn't about to go back to county, so I 'toed the line' as best I could. For a while.
It didn't take long to see that this situation was only going to go from bad to worse. He began inviting other men over and if I didn't perform well I got a good working over. They video taped a lot of the things that they did and when he was bored he would watch them while making me please him.
I finally worked up enough courage to run about mid way through May. I used every bit of knowledge and cunning I had and made it out of town. I made it about 25 miles southwest before he found me. I was starting to feel a little easier about having gotten away, a little over confident that I had outwitted the master of the chase. Suddenly headlights were shining in my eyes and he rushed me, hit my right leg behind the knee with his stick and brought me to the ground. He rolled me over, pushed my face into the pavement and cuffed me before I knew what was happening.
He was silent the whole way back to town. When we got to his house he hauled me out of the car, took me into the basement, and uncuffed me. He made me strip down and put me in a little closet. There was a large eye-bolt with a loop of chain running through it fastened to one wall. He cuffed one of my wrists, passed the other cuff through the loop of chain, and then cuffed my other wrist. Then he turned the light off, closed the door, and went upstairs to bed.
The eyebolt was about 7 feet off the floor and the loop hung down about 6 inches below that. As long as I stood up I was ok, but I was weary and my right leg hurt badly. There was nothing to sit on and eventually I sagged until my wrists took my weight. I was in and out of consciousness most of the night, sometimes standing up to give my wrists a rest, sometimes hanging to give my legs a rest.
He went to work the next day, and I was left there for another 10 hours. I desperately needed to use the toilet, and I held it as long as I could, but I just couldn't hold it anymore. I moved myself as far from my hanging point as I could and let go. The smell stayed with me all day but there was nothing I could do about that. Just endure.
I heard him coming down the stairs and when he got to the door he must have smelled it too. He said that someone was going to have a bit of cleaning up to do. He opened the door, looked at the floor and shook his head. He expressed his disappointment that I would foul my own environment like this without so much as a second thought. But first things first. He stripped, and being careful not to step in the mess on the floor, raped me. Then he dressed and un-cuffed me. He told me to get the floor cleaned up. I asked for mop or rags or something, and he shook his head. He told me to clean it with my mouth. Eat it all up or he would chain me back up and leave me there for another day. I cleaned it up ......
Back