CHAPTER FOURSLAVE ONTOLOGYCeline has given him a deceptively easy task. No, his Master had given him a deceptively easy task. That's her title. Master. Normally, women would be referred to as Mistress, at least if he’d believed some of his kinkier friends back in Iowa. But Celine is referred to as Master.

  It somehow makes sense, though. If Iffy can be ordered to become a woman as absolutely as she wants her to become one, then obviously nothing is going to stop her from demanding that she be referred to by a male title as well.

  It's almost admirable, really, given how few women rebel against traditional gender norms as is.

  Except she is not admirable. She’s a sve owner. A hint of being slightly liberal on some issues doesn’t mean she’s a good person. It might not even be liberalism— it could very well just be some weird fetish she is getting off on. It could be a humiliation tactic. Or both.

  It’s an enormous pain in the ass regardless, because Iffy is going to actually have to act out that fetish now. What other option does he have? He’s stuck in an underground cell with a shock colr around his neck.

  Of course, just becoming a woman isn’t a real option either. People can't just flip a switch and go ‘actually, I'm a woman now’ and immediately grow tits. It'd be nice if it worked that way, but it doesn't.

  The hormones and surgeries are only given out in the most dire of circumstances and not avaible to the vast majority of people. One of his friends compined about it when they tried to get prescribed some hormones to deal with their dysphoria.

  But that’s different. They actually want to transition and use all the tools avaible to them to do so. Iffy doubts he will be given the actual medical care he needs if Celine wants him to become a woman. It’s a weird fetish thing, right? Why wouldn’t she just force him to grow out his hair and stick him in a dress? That’d be way more humiliating. No surgeries needed!

  Except she already had him castrated. And there’s no indication she wouldn’t go all the way with this.

  Fuck.

  Slowly, through the hunger pangs, the terrible dehydration, and the sleeplessness, Iffy truly starts to understand just how fucked he really is this time around.

  This isn’t jail. No minor drug charges this time; no underage DUI. Not shoplifting either, nor breaking and entering abandoned property.

  He was convicted of murder, panicked, and signed up for something he hadn’t truly understood. He’d be sent to a factory, they said, he’d get a bed, food, water, and be forced to work for the rest of his life. It wasn’t going to be nice, but it was going to be better than spending the rest of his life in prison.

  But he’s not being prepared for industrial work. Celine wants something entirely different from him. That’s why he needs to think about what svery means— it’s not going to be simple. Much more will be expected from him than just obeying orders.

  She wants him to become like Elo?se. He’s going to have to be a true sve. Completely and utterly at her mercy for the rest of his life. Used for much more than just his bour.

  But what makes Elo?se a good sve, assuming she is one? He doesn’t know a lot about her, and her retionship with Celine seems complicated, but one thing that’s obvious is that she’s truly loyal. She instantly sold Iffy out when given the chance. She enforces rules on Celine’s behalf, or at least tries to. She does so even without her owner being present.

  Another thing is that she doesn’t fear her owner either. She lets herself be touched like an animal. She tells her about her dreams. She smiles dumbly when in Celine’s presence, like she’s actually happy to see her.

  Is that what it means to be a sve? Loyalty? But if it was loyalty, what then differentiates a sve from other subordinates?

  It could be that sves ck the right to say no. Or, at least, say no and have their ‘no’ be listened to. But Iffy didn’t really have that in jail, either, nor do people have that in a range of other pces: mental hospitals, the military. Even school is kind of like that. This kind of discipline is pervasive throughout society. There was some term for this he can’t quite recall— perhaps he should have read more of what his squat-mates told him to. It might not save him from what's to come, but it might at least help him answer this question and avoid more pain.

  It might get him some water, maybe even some food. He hasn’t had food since Thursday, nothing to drink since Friday. Whilst he doesn’t know exactly which day it is, he does know the need has grown desperate. More desperate than it’s ever been. He really needs to answer this question correctly. Things are already hurting so much as is.

  But the more he thinks about it, the more confusing it becomes— slowly but surely, he’s ending up with the distinction between legally ensved and practically ensved. He thought about the permanence of his situation— but prison could be just as permanent. There’s more of a difference there somewhere, but he can’t quite put his finger on it.

  The only real distinction he finds is that a sve is property. The other differences are merely retive — the sve tends to have it worse — but even that isn’t guaranteed. Elo?se is clearly treated better than he is, for example, and whilst he’s only seen a glimpse, he can guess that she’s better treated than a prisoner would be. In fact, she looks better off than most free people would be.

  She looks healthy, at least. Well-fed. No bruises, none that he could see, at least. Maybe a little pale, though that could easily be the terrible lighting in this cell. She doesn’t seem to be denied anything she needs to survive. Her food probably wasn’t stale or old enough that one had to cut away the mold. Celine treats her with obvious affection, something which Iffy definitely hadn’t received during his time in jail.

  Svery, somehow, doesn’t seem to be inherently linked to cruelty.

  It feels wrong. None of this makes any sense. He had a perfectly good working theory of what svery is — having to obey unconditionally — and that was judged to be incorrect. He still doesn’t know why it was.

  Maybe he should just sleep. See how he feels tomorrow. Forcing himself to think about it isn’t going to lead to an answer, not now. He doesn’t need more time. He needs a lead.

  ***

  The heavy locks of the door whirr open. For a second, Iffy panics, knowing that Celine is going to be behind that door. He still doesn’t have an answer to her question. Trying to think of something now isn’t going to be possible. He’s fucked. It’s over.

  Or maybe not.

  It turns out it’s not Celine who comes through that door, ready to ask him a question he couldn’t possibly answer. It’s just Elo?se. The sve looks at Iffy for a second, then closes the door behind her and drops onto her knees in a corner of the cell to start meditating again.

  In doing so, she’s entirely ignoring her fellow sve again. She looked at him, decided he wasn’t worth her time, and just moved on with whatever she was pnning to do. No solidarity, no offer to help him figure anything out, nothing.

  There’s a new sve who clearly needs some more information about what the fuck is going on as apparently there are rules and apparently he keeps breaking them. Now he has a stupid question to answer and no clue what they want to hear from him.

  It’s unfair. It’s bullshit. It’s the same shit he’s gotten used to in life. Or worse than all that came before. Or, at least, it should be.

  It is worse, in the sense that his manager at Walmart didn’t lock him up naked in a cell, but it’s also kind of the same in that the old bastard definitely would have done exactly that if he could. He fired Iffy instead.

  Maybe that’s the real difference between being a wage sve and a real sve: they can’t fire him anymore. For better or worse, they’re going to have to put up with him. At least until they find a greater fool.

  The lock whirrs again, this time in what sounds like the opposite direction. They’re stuck again. Serves her right, really. That’s what being such a good girl gets her— being locked in a cell with Iffy. Not so much to be stuck-up and arrogant about now!

  He might as well start talking to her, to really rub it in. If she doesn’t show solidarity with him, he might as well not show her any either.

  No. He shouldn’t. Not because she doesn’t deserve it, but because he has a question to be thinking about. He shouldn’t distract himself with Elo?se. It’s not worth it.

  So, what does it mean to be a sve? Or, more accurately, what does it mean to be a good sve? What would Celine want him to be like?

  He looks over at Elo?se. She’s still kneeling in that corner, not making a sound beyond the faintest hints of her breathing. The sve looks calm, happy, or at least content. Given the choice, she probably won’t move at all. She didn’t yesterday, not until Celine joined them. Even then, she only seemed to move when she was told to do so.

  That just leads him back to the definition of a sve of someone who does as they’re told. Not useful. Maybe less what she’s doing, and more why she’s doing it? Why is she meditating? It doesn’t seem to be a punishment.

  Elo?se being here is just weird. Celine is probably just ordering her to do this to confuse Iffy or bait out some kind of reaction. She could easily have meditated anywhere else. It doesn’t make sense to do so in a cell, of all pces. There’s some kind of trap being set here. They must be trying to lead him away from an answer.

  Or, maybe, probably, he isn’t supposed to actually figure anything out. Celine had repeatedly called him an idiot, after all. She didn’t want whatever answer he could give her— the only one that hasn't crumbled under scrutiny so far, other than the tautological answer of being property — and wanted him to think instead. So he would give her another wrong answer, and the cycle of torture and insults continues.

  The only real py he has here is to admit that he doesn’t know. It’s the honest answer. Celine wants him to be honest. Surely she can’t compin when he is just that?

  ***

  Celine arrives to retrieve Elo?se from the cell, first taking a moment to go through the same questions she’d asked yesterday. Whilst doing so, she showers the sve in as much attention as she can. She has one hand in her hair, petting her; another hand near her neck, gently stroking the rim of her colr; she asks her questions and seems genuinely interested in the answers. Interestingly, Celine seems quite happy. She’s smiling rather indulgently for a sve who won’t look up to see her do so.

  Any smile she might have had on her face immediately disappears the second she dismisses Elo?se and ys her eyes on her other sve.

  "And then there’s you, Esmée." She says, her voice firm, controlled, with a hint of being snappy. It’s terrifying.

  He doesn’t know what to say to that, so he doesn’t talk at all.

  Celine waits, looking at Iffy as if she’s trying to figure something out about him. He doesn’t know what.

  She coughs, impatient. Looks down on him with growing frustration, perhaps even disappointment. Iffy still doesn’t know what to do. Should he… say something? Not say something? He would expect the former, he’s struggling not to speak, but he’d clearly been told to stay silent yesterday—

  A painful electric shock reveals that he’d definitely made the wrong choice there.

  "You should greet your Master." Celine sneers. "That isn't even a sve thing, per se. It’s just polite in general. You’ve worked in retail, Esmée. You should know this.”

  "I— I'm so sorry, um... Master. Good morning." He stutters, feeling really stupid about it all. Yeah, he should have known, probably. He should also have been informed what would be expected of him! Not just be given the vague order to shut the fuck up and then be punished for not intuiting that the rule can be broken too. It’s unfair to expect him to.

  Celine takes a few steps towards him and takes his chin into her hand, forcing him to look her in the eyes. He really doesn’t want to, but doesn’t have a choice.

  "This better not be a sign of the quality of your conclusions about svery. Tell me what you came up with. Make sure it's not a waste of my time. I’ve got better things to do than put up with you."

  Here goes nothing. "I, uh, I don't know, Master."

  His owner stares at him. Iffy, feeling really useless right now, breaks eye contact.

  The floor is safe. It’s not judging him.

  "You spent a whole day thinking and that's the best you could come up with?" Celine asks, a hint of anger to her firmness now.

  "If anything I'm more confused than before." Iffy admits. He really hopes this is the right py. "You wanted me to be honest, so. There. I don’t have an answer. I have concepts of an answer, but—"

  "No wonder you were in the bargain bin." Celine interrupts him, the hint of anger in her voice overwhelmed by obvious disappointment.

  "W-What?" Iffy asks, just to realise his mistake and get shocked again. He knew not to talk! Why is he being so dumb.

  "Silence." She orders. "If you're going to be useless, if you're going to be a waste of time, at least let me decide whether I should sell you or not without disturbing my thoughts."

  Considering the show he’s gotten over the past two days, he wouldn’t mind that idea at all. Can’t get worse than being the basement thing to debase every morning, right?

  "If I can even get rid of you, at this point." Celine continues to monologue for Iffy’s benefit. "Very few people would be willing to buy a failed experiment from the bargain bin; very few decent people, at least. I could put you on the bck market for just a few thousand dolrs to be bought by any freak with a bit of spare cash. I know what happens to sves like that— cruel and unusual things."

  He’s not going to react like that. It’s too obvious that she wants him to.

  "Did you know that if I sold you today, your next owner could just decide to end your life in whatever fashion he chooses? You’re property, after all. Murder requires you to kill a person, and you gave up your personhood when you decided to become a sve. No matter how gruesome the scene, they could still get away with it. Especially if you’re bought on the bck market. There wouldn’t even be a paper trail. You’d just be… gone." She smirks, satisfied with her death threats. Celine is even worse than he’d expected.

  Iffy wants to say something. It’s escating too quickly. He doesn’t know why this is escating so quickly. He doesn’t even know whether what Celine is saying is the truth. It doesn’t feel true, but he hadn’t exactly read the document signing his rights away. There was so much legalese that it was barely legible in the first pce.

  "It might be kinder to have you put down immediately, really. You've already wasted your second chance at life as is. But at least it’d be quick and painless, wouldn’t it?"

  "B-but Master—"

  Celine shocks him yet again. It's the most intense one he's received yet, the pain so overwhelming that it felt, just for a second, like he might faint as a result. He’s very lucky he doesn’t, but he still needs a moment to ground himself. His neck hurts so bad.

  His owner is at the door when Iffy is fully conscious again. Fuck. He can’t just let her leave, not now, not after everything she’s said. It’s life or death now.

  "P-please, Master." He tries. He doesn’t care about the rule anymore. This can’t be happening. It shouldn’t be happening. "I'll be good. I promise, I’m doing my best—"

  "You won't be good. That's the whole issue. What use is a sve who doesn't know how to be one? What use is a sve who can’t guess basic expectations, like greeting its superiors? Why put you through all this if you’re not going to make it anyways? It’d be kinder not to." Celine says, arms crossed, impatiently waiting for the heavy lock to cycle.

  "I can learn." He pleads, then looks up to see the scepticism in her eyes. "I want to learn, I mean. I just need instruction, I’ll do whatever you want me to—"

  "You clearly do. You don’t know anything about what you signed up for, do you? A sve wouldn't have been curled up on the floor, whimpering." Celine sneers, then snaps her finger and points at the floor in front of her. "Come here and prove that you're going to be able to be a good sve and beg properly.”

  Iffy tries to stand up. Not that he manages to: he is immediately interrupted by another powerful shock, one which makes him lose his bance and hit the floor hard. Fuck. He really needs to get his shit together now. He can’t afford to make too many more mistakes.

  "Crawl, you idiot." Celine sneers. “If you really prefer being my sve, act like one.

  Everything hurts. He’s hungry, he’s tired, he’s scared. He’s crying. He doesn’t want to be doing any of this. Yet all he can care about is just making his way over to her, just so he can plead for his life. No matter how pathetic and humiliating it is, Iffy finds himself on the floor crawling over to his master as quickly as he can.

  Celine speaks before he can start doing so. "Like I said— useless. No instincts. No grace. I want you to go back to your corner and try again. You better do so correctly this time. I want you to be slow and to look as defeated as you are. I don't want to see a murderer who's been cornered like a wild animal, with desperate, scared movements. I want one who's been turned into a domesticated pet. Pets have grace. You did not.”

  The word hits him like a knife to his heart. Murderer. That's what he is to her; just a murderer. No wonder that she’s so happy to do this to him, someone who should just be another human being. Despite her death threats, she’s still completely convinced she’s better than him.

  The fact that he didn't wield a weapon doesn’t matter. He never killed anyone. All he did was be desperate. All he did was try to pay off his debts, taking from the people who had put an unfair millstone around his neck in the first pce. Defrauding a hospital, it seemed so simple. But apparently it was enough to convict him. To sentence him to life in prison. To abuse him like this. Because they think he’s a murderer.

  And maybe he really is. Maybe he deserves this. Because there were some payment issues at the hospital, some medicine couldn’t be delivered, and—

  Another shock. He looks up at Celine, terrified. At this point, he’s probably more of a roadblock to his survival than his owner is.

  "I told you to try again, idiot. Don't just y there and make me wait."

  "I'm so sorry, Master, I— It won't happen again." He whimpers, turning around to crawl back into the corner, slowly. It probably will happen again, but that isn’t his biggest worry right now. There are too many other things shooting through his head.

  Iffy can't help but wonder whether Celine is right about him being useless. He can't answer simple questions. He keeps breaking rules which, apparently, would be obvious to most. He can’t even crawl correctly, it seems. He never could hold down a job for more than a few weeks, a month at most. He never finished high school. His parents wanted nothing to do with him. His friends got annoyed at how dependent he ended up becoming, even if they felt sorry for him. He had nowhere to go by the time he was arrested, just days before he would be homeless again.

  Inevitably, he ended up here, in this cell, begging for his life to be spared. His worthless life. They sold him for 10,000. Three months wage, give or take. That was the total value they put on the rest of his life. Even at that price only Celine seems to have wanted him. An opinion that doesn’t seem to have sted very long.

  He reaches his corner of the cell, then turns around to look at Celine, dejected. She's watching him from a distance, still quite critical.

  "Better." She says, raising Iffy’s hopes only slightly. "Keep your back straight next time, your eyes down to the floor just a foot or so in front of you. Stop when you see my shoes and then bow down before me."

  It's weird to keep his back straight, having kept himself as small as possible up to now, but it's what is expected of him. He’s feeling much more in control of his body than he did before, but in a bad way, constantly fretting about whether he’s managing to reach Celine’s strict standards.

  Not seeing where he's going is uncomfortable too. He might be heading straight for a wall right now, and he wouldn't know. He might be headed for a closed door, Celine leaving her after offering him false hope, and he wouldn't know he would until he hears the door shut.

  She would do that, wouldn’t she? But she would. She definitely would. Celine is that cruel. But given the choice between cruelty and death… He’d choose cruelty. At least for now. It’s not too bad yet.

  Seeing her shoes is such a relief that he almost breaks down in tears seeing them. He instantly drops his head as close to the floor as possible, his hands slightly in front of him, back still kept straight. Maybe it shouldn’t be, but he wouldn’t know at this point. He doesn’t feel like he knows anything. Even the idea that he might learn these things is starting to feel distant at this point.

  "You could beg, but we both know that you would fuck that up if left to your own devices. So let’s make this easier for you. I have three simple questions for you to answer as honestly as you can. I will notice if you simply say things that seek to please me, rather than what you really believe. Dozens of girls have tried to get lies past me; they all failed. You will not be a better liar than any of them. And keep your eyes to the ground whilst you do so— I don’t want to look at more of you than I absolutely have to, right now."

  She really hates him. He’s fucked. He’s so fucked. He’s going to die.

  "Now, tell me, Esmée: why should I give you a chance to prove yourself? Do you even deserve that?”

  Now that’s a question and a half. One he doesn’t know the answer to. One he can’t really think of an answer to, either.

  Not that that is the point of this exercise. He needs to answer honestly. Honest answers aren’t perfect, they’re not supposed to be, they’re supposed to show some emotion. That’s something he can try.

  "I d-don't, Master. People died because of me." He says, voice approaching a whisper. The memory of what he did overwhelms him again. Reminds him what he is, why he’s here, and that he does, probably, deserve this. It convinces him that he’s still being honest. He feels like he has more to say, though.

  But the words have become harder to form, mere concepts and thoughts flying around in his head, disorganised. He can’t really turn them into anything coherent right now. "I don’t know why you should. You chose to, once, and— I don’t know. I’m sorry. I really wish I knew.”

  He keeps his eyes down to the floor, as ordered. He really wants to see Celine's face right now, just to have some indication whether the answer was good enough or not. Probably not. It was never going to be good enough. He’s going to die, fuck—

  "What would you want to achieve if given another chance at life, be that free or as a sve?" Celine continues, her voice tight and controlled. Not revealing anything.

  He needs a second to think about that. "I want to stop being a failure. Stop being so zy, so dependent, and give and take instead— give more than I take, I mean. Do something with my life. Make people happy."

  Celine doesn't say anything, and a deep pit immediately forms in his stomach. He’s really fucked now. "Sorry if that's, um, incoherent, Master. I never thought about a second chance. I thought my life was over already. That I’d spend the rest of it in a factory, somewhere."

  "Hmm." She pauses for a moment. Something about her tone sounds disappointed. “What's your name, sve? Are you the Esmée I want you to become, or the Iffy I bought? Remember, answer as honestly as possible. You can’t trick me here."

  "I— Iffy, Master." He says, so tense he feels like throwing up. That’s definitely not the answer she wants to hear. But he’s being honest. She wanted that. "I would like to be Esmée— it sounds, um— it sounds like she could be a better person, maybe. Maybe I could be happy like that. It’s just… I don’t feel it yet. I still feel like a boy. I wish I didn’t, if my survival requires me being… her."

  Celine again says nothing, for what feels like minutes. It sts, and it sts, and it drags, Iffy feels like he might die of the stress and the fear alone, and his breathing turns heavier and heavier, his heart pounds in his chest, his form gets smaller as he curls up more and more, his bow turning into a protective shell, now a crying mess in front of his master's feet, awaiting his fate.

  “You definitely said some things because you thought they would please me. A lot of things, actually.” Celine says.

  Yep. He’s done for.

  “But it doesn’t seem like you have been lying. You’re just figuring out what the right things to believe are. That’s good. There’s some potential there. I doubt there’s enough— but it’ll be entertaining to watch you fail. Entertaining enough to keep you around for a while.”

  Wait, does that mean… She’s not going to…

  “Elo?se will pick you up at nine. She'll show you your new bedroom and start your initial training. You will obey her words like you would mine. And before you even think of trying anything: I will have you put down immediately if you as much as threaten to hurt her. She’s my most beloved possession, you’re just a useless pything. Do you understand that, sve?”

  “Y-yes, Master.” He nods, not entirely sure what she’d told him. It’s all too overwhelming. Too terrifying. He needs a break.

  “Good. I’ll see you tonight.” She says, smming the cell door shut. She’s still angry, even through the mercy. But she did give him just that. She did give him another chance. And through this all, she also gave him more of an understanding of what being a sve is going to entail— having nothing to rely upon for his safety but his Master’s mercy.

  He already knows it's going to be a valuable lesson.

  Inadorable