We were talking to each other but we were definitely NOT communicating. The boy, one Roger Bain, a name he refuses to answer to, continued to insist that he was indeed a slave. In fact MY slave to be precise. It took me five minutes just to learn his name. I had to word the question just right.

"Please Roger, there is no such thing as slavery. You are not a slave."

"I am indeed a slave. I was trained by you uncle and he said he even had a prospective buyer. But I suppose I belong to you now, since you inherited all his property. So I guess it is up to you now what will happen to me."

We had been going in circles. I kept saying that he wasn't a slave. He kept saying things that implied that I owned him.

Look Roger, since you keep claiming that I own you. If that is true then I can do with you what I wish. Good. I then give you your freedom. I will gladly help you any way I can."

I was proud of my unassailable logic. But some men (especially Roger) did not live by logic alone. Or hardly at all.

Roger sighed. "Do you understand what is happening here, sir? Do you know what your uncle did to start earning his millions?"

To Bill, the apparent change in Roger's demeanor was even more startling than his words.

"Obviously not. But you now seem perfectly capable of putting aside your role as a so-called slave with ease. Maybe you can start with who exactly you are, why you are here, and perhaps what role my uncle had played in all this. Please. The place downstairs is totally bizarre."

"Very well. As I said, I was born Roger Bain; I am just 17 years old, and three months ago I finally talked your uncle into taking me as a slave and training me for sale. He used to do that years ago. It was how he and his partner started to amass their fortune. At least that was what Master Rick had told me."

"As for myself. Master Rick had finally lined up a possible buyer for me but he wanted to check him out more. He wasn't about to sell me to someone who would abuse me. Unfortunately he didn't have all the contacts that his former partner did. So things were going slow. And then he got very ill. He was worried that he would not be able to complete what he had started out to do."

I barely could believe what this Roger was saying. I found the entire thing too fantastic.

"Wait a minute. Back up. How can you talk about all this as if selling a person were a routine thing? And I can't understand how you allowed yourself to be turned into a slave? This plain does not compute."

"Sorry sir. I will try to do better. Your uncle and his former partner, whom I barely knew -- I was only 13 when he died --quite a number of years ago, used to find and sometimes train slaves for selected clients. They had an excellent reputation for being able to match good slaves with good clients. And they were very careful in choosing their clients. Master Rick's partner. . . "

I interrupted. "Just a second. What was his partner's name?"

"Sorry sir, I never knew it. The short times I knew his partner, Master Rick either called him boy or slave. He. . ."

"WHAT!!? What the hell are you saying? His partner was a slave?"

"Sir. I thought you knew. They were together for years. It was really sad. Master Rick was never quite the same after his slave died. It was so sudden. And he was barely 35 years old. Some liver disorder. He. . ."

"Stop. Back up again." This story was getting even more bizarre. "Roger, you are saying that my uncle's partner was actually his slave?"

"Yes sir. And that's how he got into the slave training business to begin with. It seems that he rescued his future partner from a very unscrupulous slave trader."

"And just how did you know all this?"

"Well, Master Rick, four years ago, found me in a basement of a house owned by two guys who had held me captive for several years. Before that I was forced to live with another guy. All I knew then was fear and pain. I had so buried everything else that even a couple years later, I still could not remember my parent's names or where I had previously lived. Shit, I had only been seven years old, I think, when I was first kidnapped. And I had been completely terrorized. After Master Rick rescued me, I stayed here a couple weeks but no one would let me stay with a gay couple. The foster system took me in and then thanks to Master Rick, he found me some good foster parents who really cared for me and he also paid for years of therapy. I only found out this later from my new parents. Unfortunately, at just the worst time, they died in a car accident and I was put back into the system. Even for someone who can take good care of himself, it can still be brutal. For me it was a disaster."

"Please Roger, just a minute. I find this all too much to believe." Masters, slaves, captives, I could hardly credit all this. I stood up and walked back and forth. This was entirely too much to digest let alone believe. And I decided to clear up one thing right now. "Let's go back to yourself Roger. You said you knew my uncle when you were 13 years old. But just recently you were in foster care. How then did you go from that to being sold to my uncle and being trained as a slave? And you say he was about to actually SELL you to someone else? And this doesn't seem to bother you!?"

Roger stood this time and thought for a moment. He finally asked a question. "Do you know where Master Rick's computer is? I'm sure you will find some answers in his files. Including a photo of me when I came here. It was more than a half year ago. I had been thinking of suicide at the time, but then remembered a kind person who had briefly befriended me almost four years earlier. I was in a hospital for several weeks because I had been attacked. I'm pretty small for my age and gay, and worse than that, I was totally unable to take care of myself. In fact I had trouble even functioning in the real world."

"The last night in that hospital I held 20 pills in my hand. All the medication I had been secreting away. I was trying to get up the nerve to take them instead of going back to that group home."

I started to realized that this was a complicated story. I replied: "So nearly a half year ago you came here to live with Uncle Rick?"

"Yes sir. He even hid me from social services who would have condemned me to that group home again."

"But then where does all this slave stuff come in?"

"Well, I lived with Master Rick and after several months, finally started to recover emotionally. But it gradually became clear to both of us that I would never be able to function very well in the crazy real world out there. Master Rick had originally decided to take care of me indefinitely until several months ago his health started failing. When we realized that he might not be there for me much longer, I asked him to take me as his slave and start my training. He also started looking for a prospective master for me."

I exclaimed: "You mean it was YOU who decided just like that to become a slave?"

"No, not just like that. I'd actually thought about it off and on for years. Ever since I saw how happy Master Rick's partner, and slave, was. After a lot of pleading on my part, Master Rick finally agreed.'

"So, just like that you became his slave. So then what about all that weird stuff downstairs?"

For once Roger actually blushed in his recount of his tale. "Well, you must realize that this slave-master relationship is very largely a sexual one. And the roles of master and slave involves not only a strongly submissive nature on the part of the slave, but an equally dominating nature on the part of the master. And, though not totally, its nature involves a tremendous amount of sexual motivation and desires. Just like in many intimate relationships. But in most slave-master relationships, the sexual roles frequently involve extreme control, even to the point of physical control. In many slave-master relationships this will involve varying degrees of bondage, discipline, and in some cases, even a sado-masochistic element. Though that is seen much more often in books and stories than in real life."

I realized that I was pretty young and uninformed, but hearing all this as though it was everyday-normal, was too much to take in all at once. Though, I must confess, the images that this boy, or teenager, was conjuring up in my own mind had me quite aroused. And I could see Roger staring at the bulge in my own pants again. I decided to get back to the basic story.

"So, then what happened with your training and all?"

"Well, Master Rick would not admit it, but I suspect he knew what was the matter with him but was just trying to complete my training, and get me a good master before he could no longer function. But quite suddenly he got so much worse and had to admitted to me that he had a non-malignant brain tumor. However, it was starting to wreck havoc with his brain function and needed to be removed. He was pretty old, almost 70 and the outlook looked bleak. Thus all the emergency plans and lawyers and everything. It happened fast."

Damn! Not what? What the hell was I now supposed to do with Roger? He seemed pretty competent right now. How come he wanted to be a slave? I still found that difficult to comprehend. But he beat me to it.

Roger asked: "Now what sir? Please!" Damn if I could now see a few tears in his eyes. "I don't know what I am going to do. Please take care of me!"

"OK. I'm not yet sure how or what. But I promise to take care of you." Shit, I was now a millionaire. I should be able to do something! But first I decided to take care of all the lawyer stuff, and possibly more importantly, find out what the hell was my uncle all about!

"So, Roger. Let me read this letter from my uncle and then maybe we can start to figure out what to do."

"Thank-you master. I mean sir." His smile lit the room.