The man sat up from Brenda's lap and looked at her suspiciously. "Who the devil are ye?" He asked with a thick spanish accent. Then he looked around at his surroundings. "And where the devil am I?"
"This isn't possible." Brenda got to her feet and backed away from him.
The man looked Brenda up and down with contempt. "What are ye?" He demanded to know, as he grabbed her by the arm. "Some lightskirt? Did ye help some highwayman cosh me on the head and clean me pockets." He gave her a shake. "Did ye, girl?"
Brenda pulled away from him and decided to take control of this situation. "Why don't you tell me who you think you are." She spat. "And I'll tell you where you are."
"I don't think." He spat back arrogantly. "I know who I am. I am Marco Rodrigo Miguel Lopez Consuelos." He added disdainfully. "And who are you?"
"Brenda Veronica Barrett." Brenda replied. "Sorry, i don't have as many names as you're claiming to have."
"Of course not." He looked down his nose at her. "I am of Spanish nobility and you are a mere peasant."
"You're certainly not dressed that way." Brenda threw back at him. "You're dressed in the rags of a beggar."
"My family fell on hard times." Marco admitted reluctantly. "We lost all our land and fortune. I was forced to sell myself into indentured servitude so I could come to the Americas and make my fortune."
"Well." Brenda laughed as she began to walk around him and size him up. "You made it. You're in America. Port Charles, New York to be precise."
He looked her up and down. "And do all the women here dress as you do?" He asked before adding nastily. "Like cheap doxies?"
"Watch it, Marco." She spat. "You'd better start treating me a lot nicer, cause I'm all you got."
"I don't recall giving you leave to speak my first name." He declared haughtily. "You may call me Senor Consuelos."
Brenda shook her head in disbelief. "I can't believe it." She muttered. "You look exactly like Sonny, but you're nothing like him." She added. "Just what year do you think it is, anyway?"
"I don't think." He spat. "I know. It's the year of our lord 1792."
"Sorry, Marco." Brenda retorted. "But you're off by a couple of hundred years." She paused for effect. "The year is 2003."
Marco looked at her like she was crazy. "You're a bedlamite, aren't you?" He backed away from her. "You stay away from me!"
"Come back here!" Brenda screamed. "You have to help me get Sonny back!"
Marco ran from Brenda like the hounds of hell were chasing after him. He was so determined to get away from her he didn't see the oncoming car approaching as he ran into the road.
"Ah, so that's ye plan." The man dressed in beggars clothes declared. "Now that ye've gotten yerself to the Colonies, ye plannin' ta act like yer tetched in the head so you can get out of your indentured servitude."
"My what!" Sonny sat up with a jerk. He had no memory of who he was and how he'd gotten there, but he knew this was all wrong.
"Eh, now." The man noticed the clothes Sonny was wearing. "Where'd ye get those fancy duds?" Before Sonny could answer the man, he added. "Ye'd better get them off before the master sees them on you or he'll strip the skin off your hide." He threw a pile of clothes similar to what he was wearing at Sonny. "Here, put these on and be quick about it. It's time for you to start working off the contract you signed."
"Wait a minute." Sonny called at the man's departing back. "You didn't tell me what your name is."
"I'm Angus McDooley." He said as he stomped out the door. "Pleasure to meet ye."
"And now that you've told me who you are." Sonny muttered to himself. "Maybe you could tell me who I'm supposed to be."
Sonny got to his feet and stripped off his clothes and pulled on the rough feeling shirt and pants. The scratchiness of the material made him itch and he knew his skin was used to feeling fine material against it, not this coarse and cheaply made fabric. After that, there didn't seem to be much reason to remain in the room, so he headed off in the direction Angus McDooley had taken off.
He found him standing in the middle of the stable. "So, what is it I'm supposed to do here?" Sonny asked.
"Still playing your game, I see." Angus rolled his eyes. "The reason the master brought you here is because you're supposed to have experience with thoroughbred horses. Your family supposedly bred them before ye lost all yer money."
Sonny looked at a horse standing in the stall with trepidation. Great, he didn't know the frontend from the backend. Well, he'd just have to wing it. From what this Angus said, the master didn't sound like a nice person, and he had no intention of letting anyone take the hide off his backside. "Just tell me where to get started."
"Ye can begin by mucking out the stalls." Angus told him. "Ye can find the pitchfork over there."
"Oh, goody." Sonny tried to smile, then he picked up the pitchfork and got to it. It was the most disgusting thing Sonny could ever remember having to do. Not that he could remember anything. But he was quite sure it was.
"Look lively." Angus suddenly yelled. "It's the master."
Sonny started moving the pitchfork in earnest and kept his back to the door, hoping not to attract the master's attention. He heard his heavy footsteps as he entered the stable. When he spoke, he could hear he spoke in a refined accent. Not in the gutter slang that Angus spoke in.
"How is it going, McDooley." He asked in an arrogant tone. "How's the new slave that we shipped in, yesterday, working out." Sonny bristled at being described as a slave. He was nobody's slave.
"Just fine, master." Angus replied in a subservient manner. He pointed to Sonny. "As you can see."
Jocelyn Jerrold looked over in Sonny's direction. "So it appears." He turned back to Angus. "Make sure he keeps it that way."
Jocelyn's wife, Belinda suddenly entered the stable. "Darling." She cooed. "I was wondering where you'd taken off to."
"I just came down here to look over our new stock." Jocelyn replied, and Sonny knew he was talking about him like he was another horse he'd just purchased.
"And is he pleasing?" She linked her arm through her husband's and beamed up at him.
"You tell me." He pointed in Sonny's direction. "There he is."
"Well," She pouted prettily. "I can't really tell anything when all I can see is the back of him."
"Right you are, my dear." Jocelyn smiled down at her. "Boy! Come over here!" He ordered in a voice that rankled Sonny. Sonny kept working like he hadn't heard his summons. "Boy!" Jocelyn repeated in angry tones. "Did you hear me. I said come over here, at once."
"Do as he says." Angus hissed in Sonny's ear. "I know it rankles, but you'll suffer the worst for any sign of disobdience."
"He doesn't seem to mind very well." Belinda commented. "That surely must be counted against him."
"I'm sorry, Master." Sonny replied as he turned around. "I wasn't aware you were speaking to me, since boy isn't my name."
Sonny felt a sudden jolt in his stomach as he laid eyes on Jocelyn Jerrold. Jerrold was tall with blonde hair and a chin cleft and a very haughty looking face. Even though he didn't know the man, he felt he did. On some level he recognized the man. He was someone who was no stranger to him. He was someone, Sonny felt, that was an enemy of his. Then he turned his gaze on Jerrold's wife and he got a jolt of another kind. She was a little shorter than he was with hair the same color as his and eyes as dark as his own. He felt like he knew her and he could see by her reaction she had felt the same thing.
Belinda tried to shake off the intimate feeling that had come over her when her eyes met those of Jocelyn's new slave. "And he's mouthy, as well." She forced herself to look up at her husband when all she wanted to do was devour the new slave with her eyes, hands and mouth. "Yet another mark against him. Perhaps you should send him back, and get a less inferior model."
"Oh, he'll learn his place." Jocelyn promised her, before looking directly in Sonny's eyes. "Or he'll feel the end of my whip." He turned back to his wife. "Now, let's go. We've wasted enough of our time with this riff-raff. We're expected at the McPherson's for tea." He held out his arm for her. "Shall we go, my dear?"
"Of course." She took his arm as he lead her out of the stable, but she couldn't stop herself from taking one last look at Sonny as they left. That look in her eyes told Sonny she'd be back, and this time her husband wouldn't be with her.
"Here less than a day." Angus hissed in his ear. "And already looking for trouble."
Sonny turned around to him. "How was I supposed to know he was talking to me." Sonny defended himself. "He didn't call me by name." Not that Sonny would have known it if he had.
"That's not what I'm talking about." Angus snapped. "And you know it. I'm talking about what just went on between you and Mrs. Jerrold. Ye'd best put all ideas of getting under her skirts right out of yer head unless you want to end up gelded or dead." He added. "That was the fate of the last two blighters who enjoyed the pleasure of the lady's shapely thighs."
"I have no idea what you're talking about." Sonny repled.
Angus wasn't buying that for a second. "Don't say I didn't warn you."