Sablesword
TMF Master
- Joined
- Jun 13, 2001
- Messages
- 787
- Points
- 18
1. The Request
I'm looking for "beta readers" for my story Tickle Witch, that I intend to be a real full-bore novel with a word count north of 60,000 words. What I'm looking for are a few people who will tell me to keep going, rather than people who will do critiques (although I'll accept thoughtful critiques, too.) In exchange for giving me motivation, you'll get to see the further chapters as I finish them. (Currently I'm on chapter 4.)
2. The "Cover Blurb"
It's 1958, and WWII veteran Guy Herbert has gone down to his neighborhood dealer to sell his current woman and buy a new house slave: Dark-skinned, ticklish Susanna.
No, the South didn't win the Civil War. Rather, history took a different turn when 19th century feminists began practicing "witchcraft" - using actual psychic powers to try to achieve their goals - and the women's suffrage movement turned violent and nasty. In the resulting anti-feminist backlash, the post-Civil-War abolition of slavery was re-intrepreted as applying only to black men.
Racial equality thus came a decade or two earlier that it otherwise would have, but for feminism it was all downhill: In this timeline, instead of securing the right to vote, the 19th Amendment turned all the women in the US into the chattel slaves of their menfolk, regardless of race.
So it stands in this alternative year of 1958. Guy Herbert has a house in the suburbs, a job with a government contractor, access to secrets that the "feminist commies" of Soviet Russia would love to get their paws on, and a new slavegirl on which he can indulge his passion for tickling.
3. The Sample First Chapter
Tickle Witch
by Sablesword
Chapter 1
Guy Herbert knew he was tired when the lights failed to come on. He glared at the switch panel, sending a deliberate mental probe. The lights still failed to come on. Then the room lit as Jane entered. Women almost always had better psychic abilities than men, even when they were mere house slaves.
Guy sighed and sank into the loveseat, letting the familiar smell of leather rise around him. He was home early from work, for the first time in two weeks, but that's the way his job went. He was a supervisor on the special line in Rockland Chemical's Plant Four, and sometimes that meant days of twelve hours plus, and sometimes a scant half-day before the boss told him to go home already.
"I have a martini for you, Master." Jane knelt before him, barefoot, dressed in a square of colorful rayon gauze, in a pattern that had come into style in 1957 and remained in the mode a year later.
Guy took the glass. "Thank you dear." He spoke in the mild tones his father had insisted on. Slaves deserved slave-politeness, according to the elder Herbert, and only vulgar men were vulgar to the females they owned. Guy was not vulgar. He was middle class and upward bound.
But what Guy really wanted was a mug of Brew. He considered Jane, thinking about ordering her to fetch him some. His house slave was pretty enough in a plain sort of way, with blue eyes, light brown hair, and an average height and build for an American woman. In addition to her translucent covering, she wore a plain slave-mark tattooed on her left hand, and a plain steel collar inscribed with her Master's name. That marked her as a plain house slave, as a bond witch would have a fancier collar.
Guy had purchased Jane a few years after the War. A mistake, he admitted to himself, and one he had been too embarrassed to correct. He'd been twenty-two then, having spent a year fighting the Nazi war machine, and then a couple of years as part of the Japanese Occupation. Freshly discharged from the Army, he had the bright idea of buying a fresh eighteen year old and training her himself.
The training had been a success. Jane might not be physically stunning, and she might not be a bond witch, but she could enchant any man without half trying. Except for Guy himself. As the years went by, he found her more and more cloying, and that had made her frustrated and unhappy. He really should sell her and buy a different woman. He really should.
Guy set down his untasted drink. "Go hobble yourself, Jane. We're going out."
Susanna wiggled on the display platform, frightened and excited. She was being sold! She was twenty-two now - the tattoo on her hand read '31May1936' below the Mark of Sheba - and she was being sold! She would be sold to a man, a Master, and not another training crèche. She stretched and wiggled as men walked by, beyond the plexiglas. She pulled enticingly at the restraints that bound her to the platform. Thick rubber cuffs grasped her wrists and ankles, with steel chains running from them to the anchor point before her. She shivered. She'd been restrained before, many times, in a dozen different ways, but her new Master would go beyond simply restraining her. He would do things to her, after making her deliciously helpless with ropes or leather or chains of steel. She was being sold!
An older man stopped to give her a look. Susanna smiled at him. Except for the dealer's collar she wore, she was nude, with brown skin from her Negro father, large eyes from her Jewish mother, and dark curly hair from both of them. If her shackles had allowed her to stand, she would be an inch or two under average height for an American woman. Which she was, even if her mother hadn't been. Her mother had been one of the early ones sent to America as part of the Devil's Bargain with the Nazis. Three million women had escaped that way, while the men stayed behind and died.
The American government had given Susanna's mother to the Buffalo Soldiers for training, along with all the other women in that refugee ship. A few of those Negro soldiers had received permission to make private purchases, before the authorities realized just who was making the request, and Susanna was one of the results.
The man moved on, but there were others. Another man, a younger one in a rumpled suit was looking at her now. Sooner or later a man would buy her. Susanna wiggled once more. She was being sold!
Guy kept his eyes away from the display platforms as he made his way out of Forrest's Finest Females. He had the check from Jane's sale tucked safely away, and he intended to deposit it and then wait a couple of days before shopping for a new house slave. So he kept his eyes on the walls, looking at the historical prints displayed there.
The prints portrayed the antebellum uprising of Jane Brown, and the assassination of Abe Lincoln by Jane Wilma Booth. Then Mad Mary Lincoln's attempted coup, after her husband's death. The preaching of Brother Samson, the former slave who had done so much to improve the relations between white men and black. The Undermarket of New York, where women and psychic-enhancing Brew were sold, despite both being technically illegal at the time. The decision in Missie vs Montgomery, where the Supreme Court ruled that the 13th Amendment applied to black men and white women, but not to black females. The 18th Amendment, prohibiting Brew nationwide, and the 21st Amendment that repealed it. And the 19th Amendment, advancing the cause of racial equality by confirming that all women in the United States, regardless of color, were the chattel slaves of their menfolk.
There the historical series ended, and Guy glanced out over the checker-tiled floor of the showroom, looking for the exit. That's when he saw the half-Negro cutie.
She was one of two non-white women on the floor, the other being a Japanese girl. Neither had price tags displayed, but no doubt they'd be overpriced. Certainly the Japanese would cost too much, compared to the cheap prices Guy had seen during the Occupation. A number of his buddies had brought Japanese purchases home with them, and more power to them. Some Masters were just plain good with exotics. But Guy didn't consider himself one of them.
On the other hand, a Negress wasn't really an exotic. In fact, her darkness would be an advantage if he ever had to travel. The southern States still resisted the 19th Amendment, almost forty years after its passage. They got sticky about white women being treated as chattels, despite the clear language of the Amendment and the Supreme Court confirming in several cases that demancipation really did apply to females of all races.
A salesman materialized just as Guy started to turn away. "Good evening sir. Would you like to examine her more closely? She's a good one."
"I'll bet you say that about all the women here," Guy told him.
"Of course sir," the salesman answered smoothly, professional smile in place. "Only the good ones are offered for sale here at Forrest's Finest Females. Now I can raise the enclosure, if you'd like."
Guy was about to refuse when he caught sight of the rack of mugs and the Brew pot. He really did want a mug of Brew. Besides, maybe this was a real premonition, although premonitions generally came after drinking Brew, rather than before.
"Actually I'd like to start by looking over her papers." Guy smiled back at the salesman, the smile he used at work. Slave women, new autos, or tanker-cars of ammonium hydroxide, whatever they sold, salesmen were all the same.
A few minutes later they were sharing mugs of Brew, sitting on opposite sides of a desk cluttered with folders, loose paper, and a little Samson-icon. Guy looked over the paperwork. "Hmm, 'Susanna, S-number such-and-such, born 31-May-1936; father Alexander Brown, race Negro; mother Hanna, S-number so-and-so, race Jewish' - she must have come over as part of the Bargain." Guy paused, then continued reading aloud. "'Height 62.5 inches, weight 115 pounds, collar 13, bra 32B' - I think she's a bit bigger than that, now - 'wrists 5.5, waist 25, ankles 8.0 (6)...' What's the parentheses?"
"Sandal-size for hobbles," the salesman answered.
"OK, that's a new one on me." Guy took another swallow. "This is good Brew."
"Not as good as my grandpa used to make. Of course that was moonshine Brew, back during Prohibition." The salesman, Guy noticed, was no longer pushing hard. He thought he had his fish hooked, and was playing out the line, nice and easy. Well, maybe he was hooked, Guy thought. Or maybe the Brew really was giving him a premonition. It's what Brew was for, after all - enhancing psychic abilities.
Guy returned to the papers. "'Cleveland schooling crèche 1943-47, Ohio State Plantation (Mansfield) 1947-57, Mansfield Finishing Estate 1953-57, IQ 126' - that's another new one on me - 'Rhine score 23 with a star. Telescribe WPM dash dash' - what does that mean? Hasn't she been tested?"
"Let me look..." The salesman set aside his mug and thumbed through the folder. "Here it is: Her Rhine score is for potential only. They tested her on a telescribe back in '53 and found that she couldn't work it. She's got a block. It won't matter if you're shopping for just a house slave, but I'll tell you what: I'll knock a little off her price for that."
"Thanks. I'll remember that when we start haggling." Guy finished skimming the papers. "OK, just one more question for you: Is she ticklish?"
The salesman's professional smile returned. "Lets find out."
Susanna watched the man in the rumpled suit as he approached her platform again, following behind the salesman. The salesman flipped a switch and the plexiglass rose. Susanna knelt very straight, smiling. She noticed the man's fingers twitch. He would feel her and then, if she pleased him, he would buy her. Her breath came more quickly and she suppressed a wiggle, holding her head high. She tried to project desire and desirability, and found her projection contained once again within her skin.
The salesman unlocked Susanna's manacle-chain from the anchor before her and stepped up on the platform, holding the chain so that she was forced to raise her arms above her head. Her potential buyer stepped forward, and the blunt fingers of his masculine hands stroked her breasts, her sides, and her thighs. He leaned closer, to whisper in her ear. "I am going to tickle you, now," and true to his word, his stroking fingers began to tickle.
Susanna squirmed, giggling, in an attempt to shift away. She couldn't. Kneeling, her ankles and wrists imprisoned, her arms above her head, she could not escape. She couldn't avoid the fingers tickling her belly and sides, her upper arms and shoulder blades. She couldn't stand it, but neither could she avoid it. She could only suffer, squirming and laughing, as her tormentor sent tickle-sensations into her skin wherever and however he pleased.
Then Susanna's perceptions changed, with the suddenness of a card being flipped over. Just as she was about to beg for the tickling to stop, it turned into pleasure. Unbearable pleasure, as those masculine fingers danced down her spine, just as it had been unbearable agony moments before.
Susanna still laughed, unable to make herself stop, and she still squirmed, unable to keep herself from trying to twist away, but now she was desperate for her struggles to fail. She felt those fingers raking her soles, first on her right foot, and then her left, and spikes of pleasure ran up her legs as the tickle-sensations poured into her. She was glad of the strong chains holding her to the platform, and the strong arms of the salesman that held her in place for that desperately desirable tickle-torment that her new Master was inflicting upon her.
The tickling stopped. Susanna sobbed, once, twice, and shivered. A cold fear blew through her. Maybe she wasn't good enough. Maybe her new Master didn't want her. Maybe he wouldn't buy her after all. Maybe...
"I guess she is ticklish, after all," Master said, a huge grin on his face.
The salesman kept his own smile professional. "I guess she is."
"What's her asking price?" Master raised his hand. "And don't tell me what a bargain I'm getting.
The salesman opened his mouth, and closed it again. His smile grew a shade more genuine. "$2,000," he said at last.
"You said you'd knock some off her price," Master answered, and the haggling began. Haggling over her! Back and forth the sales man went with Master, and then Master said, "$1,700 and you pay the registration, along with all the other nickle-and-dime fees."
"Done!" the salesman said. He flipped the switch lowering the plexiglass, and taped a red 'SOLD' sign to it. The two men then shook hands.
Susanna ignored the envious looks that the other slaves at shot her from their own platforms. She had been sold!
(end of chapter 1)
I'm looking for "beta readers" for my story Tickle Witch, that I intend to be a real full-bore novel with a word count north of 60,000 words. What I'm looking for are a few people who will tell me to keep going, rather than people who will do critiques (although I'll accept thoughtful critiques, too.) In exchange for giving me motivation, you'll get to see the further chapters as I finish them. (Currently I'm on chapter 4.)
2. The "Cover Blurb"
It's 1958, and WWII veteran Guy Herbert has gone down to his neighborhood dealer to sell his current woman and buy a new house slave: Dark-skinned, ticklish Susanna.
No, the South didn't win the Civil War. Rather, history took a different turn when 19th century feminists began practicing "witchcraft" - using actual psychic powers to try to achieve their goals - and the women's suffrage movement turned violent and nasty. In the resulting anti-feminist backlash, the post-Civil-War abolition of slavery was re-intrepreted as applying only to black men.
Racial equality thus came a decade or two earlier that it otherwise would have, but for feminism it was all downhill: In this timeline, instead of securing the right to vote, the 19th Amendment turned all the women in the US into the chattel slaves of their menfolk, regardless of race.
So it stands in this alternative year of 1958. Guy Herbert has a house in the suburbs, a job with a government contractor, access to secrets that the "feminist commies" of Soviet Russia would love to get their paws on, and a new slavegirl on which he can indulge his passion for tickling.
3. The Sample First Chapter
Tickle Witch
by Sablesword
Chapter 1
Guy Herbert knew he was tired when the lights failed to come on. He glared at the switch panel, sending a deliberate mental probe. The lights still failed to come on. Then the room lit as Jane entered. Women almost always had better psychic abilities than men, even when they were mere house slaves.
Guy sighed and sank into the loveseat, letting the familiar smell of leather rise around him. He was home early from work, for the first time in two weeks, but that's the way his job went. He was a supervisor on the special line in Rockland Chemical's Plant Four, and sometimes that meant days of twelve hours plus, and sometimes a scant half-day before the boss told him to go home already.
"I have a martini for you, Master." Jane knelt before him, barefoot, dressed in a square of colorful rayon gauze, in a pattern that had come into style in 1957 and remained in the mode a year later.
Guy took the glass. "Thank you dear." He spoke in the mild tones his father had insisted on. Slaves deserved slave-politeness, according to the elder Herbert, and only vulgar men were vulgar to the females they owned. Guy was not vulgar. He was middle class and upward bound.
But what Guy really wanted was a mug of Brew. He considered Jane, thinking about ordering her to fetch him some. His house slave was pretty enough in a plain sort of way, with blue eyes, light brown hair, and an average height and build for an American woman. In addition to her translucent covering, she wore a plain slave-mark tattooed on her left hand, and a plain steel collar inscribed with her Master's name. That marked her as a plain house slave, as a bond witch would have a fancier collar.
Guy had purchased Jane a few years after the War. A mistake, he admitted to himself, and one he had been too embarrassed to correct. He'd been twenty-two then, having spent a year fighting the Nazi war machine, and then a couple of years as part of the Japanese Occupation. Freshly discharged from the Army, he had the bright idea of buying a fresh eighteen year old and training her himself.
The training had been a success. Jane might not be physically stunning, and she might not be a bond witch, but she could enchant any man without half trying. Except for Guy himself. As the years went by, he found her more and more cloying, and that had made her frustrated and unhappy. He really should sell her and buy a different woman. He really should.
Guy set down his untasted drink. "Go hobble yourself, Jane. We're going out."
#
Susanna wiggled on the display platform, frightened and excited. She was being sold! She was twenty-two now - the tattoo on her hand read '31May1936' below the Mark of Sheba - and she was being sold! She would be sold to a man, a Master, and not another training crèche. She stretched and wiggled as men walked by, beyond the plexiglas. She pulled enticingly at the restraints that bound her to the platform. Thick rubber cuffs grasped her wrists and ankles, with steel chains running from them to the anchor point before her. She shivered. She'd been restrained before, many times, in a dozen different ways, but her new Master would go beyond simply restraining her. He would do things to her, after making her deliciously helpless with ropes or leather or chains of steel. She was being sold!
An older man stopped to give her a look. Susanna smiled at him. Except for the dealer's collar she wore, she was nude, with brown skin from her Negro father, large eyes from her Jewish mother, and dark curly hair from both of them. If her shackles had allowed her to stand, she would be an inch or two under average height for an American woman. Which she was, even if her mother hadn't been. Her mother had been one of the early ones sent to America as part of the Devil's Bargain with the Nazis. Three million women had escaped that way, while the men stayed behind and died.
The American government had given Susanna's mother to the Buffalo Soldiers for training, along with all the other women in that refugee ship. A few of those Negro soldiers had received permission to make private purchases, before the authorities realized just who was making the request, and Susanna was one of the results.
The man moved on, but there were others. Another man, a younger one in a rumpled suit was looking at her now. Sooner or later a man would buy her. Susanna wiggled once more. She was being sold!
#
Guy kept his eyes away from the display platforms as he made his way out of Forrest's Finest Females. He had the check from Jane's sale tucked safely away, and he intended to deposit it and then wait a couple of days before shopping for a new house slave. So he kept his eyes on the walls, looking at the historical prints displayed there.
The prints portrayed the antebellum uprising of Jane Brown, and the assassination of Abe Lincoln by Jane Wilma Booth. Then Mad Mary Lincoln's attempted coup, after her husband's death. The preaching of Brother Samson, the former slave who had done so much to improve the relations between white men and black. The Undermarket of New York, where women and psychic-enhancing Brew were sold, despite both being technically illegal at the time. The decision in Missie vs Montgomery, where the Supreme Court ruled that the 13th Amendment applied to black men and white women, but not to black females. The 18th Amendment, prohibiting Brew nationwide, and the 21st Amendment that repealed it. And the 19th Amendment, advancing the cause of racial equality by confirming that all women in the United States, regardless of color, were the chattel slaves of their menfolk.
There the historical series ended, and Guy glanced out over the checker-tiled floor of the showroom, looking for the exit. That's when he saw the half-Negro cutie.
She was one of two non-white women on the floor, the other being a Japanese girl. Neither had price tags displayed, but no doubt they'd be overpriced. Certainly the Japanese would cost too much, compared to the cheap prices Guy had seen during the Occupation. A number of his buddies had brought Japanese purchases home with them, and more power to them. Some Masters were just plain good with exotics. But Guy didn't consider himself one of them.
On the other hand, a Negress wasn't really an exotic. In fact, her darkness would be an advantage if he ever had to travel. The southern States still resisted the 19th Amendment, almost forty years after its passage. They got sticky about white women being treated as chattels, despite the clear language of the Amendment and the Supreme Court confirming in several cases that demancipation really did apply to females of all races.
A salesman materialized just as Guy started to turn away. "Good evening sir. Would you like to examine her more closely? She's a good one."
"I'll bet you say that about all the women here," Guy told him.
"Of course sir," the salesman answered smoothly, professional smile in place. "Only the good ones are offered for sale here at Forrest's Finest Females. Now I can raise the enclosure, if you'd like."
Guy was about to refuse when he caught sight of the rack of mugs and the Brew pot. He really did want a mug of Brew. Besides, maybe this was a real premonition, although premonitions generally came after drinking Brew, rather than before.
"Actually I'd like to start by looking over her papers." Guy smiled back at the salesman, the smile he used at work. Slave women, new autos, or tanker-cars of ammonium hydroxide, whatever they sold, salesmen were all the same.
A few minutes later they were sharing mugs of Brew, sitting on opposite sides of a desk cluttered with folders, loose paper, and a little Samson-icon. Guy looked over the paperwork. "Hmm, 'Susanna, S-number such-and-such, born 31-May-1936; father Alexander Brown, race Negro; mother Hanna, S-number so-and-so, race Jewish' - she must have come over as part of the Bargain." Guy paused, then continued reading aloud. "'Height 62.5 inches, weight 115 pounds, collar 13, bra 32B' - I think she's a bit bigger than that, now - 'wrists 5.5, waist 25, ankles 8.0 (6)...' What's the parentheses?"
"Sandal-size for hobbles," the salesman answered.
"OK, that's a new one on me." Guy took another swallow. "This is good Brew."
"Not as good as my grandpa used to make. Of course that was moonshine Brew, back during Prohibition." The salesman, Guy noticed, was no longer pushing hard. He thought he had his fish hooked, and was playing out the line, nice and easy. Well, maybe he was hooked, Guy thought. Or maybe the Brew really was giving him a premonition. It's what Brew was for, after all - enhancing psychic abilities.
Guy returned to the papers. "'Cleveland schooling crèche 1943-47, Ohio State Plantation (Mansfield) 1947-57, Mansfield Finishing Estate 1953-57, IQ 126' - that's another new one on me - 'Rhine score 23 with a star. Telescribe WPM dash dash' - what does that mean? Hasn't she been tested?"
"Let me look..." The salesman set aside his mug and thumbed through the folder. "Here it is: Her Rhine score is for potential only. They tested her on a telescribe back in '53 and found that she couldn't work it. She's got a block. It won't matter if you're shopping for just a house slave, but I'll tell you what: I'll knock a little off her price for that."
"Thanks. I'll remember that when we start haggling." Guy finished skimming the papers. "OK, just one more question for you: Is she ticklish?"
The salesman's professional smile returned. "Lets find out."
#
Susanna watched the man in the rumpled suit as he approached her platform again, following behind the salesman. The salesman flipped a switch and the plexiglass rose. Susanna knelt very straight, smiling. She noticed the man's fingers twitch. He would feel her and then, if she pleased him, he would buy her. Her breath came more quickly and she suppressed a wiggle, holding her head high. She tried to project desire and desirability, and found her projection contained once again within her skin.
The salesman unlocked Susanna's manacle-chain from the anchor before her and stepped up on the platform, holding the chain so that she was forced to raise her arms above her head. Her potential buyer stepped forward, and the blunt fingers of his masculine hands stroked her breasts, her sides, and her thighs. He leaned closer, to whisper in her ear. "I am going to tickle you, now," and true to his word, his stroking fingers began to tickle.
Susanna squirmed, giggling, in an attempt to shift away. She couldn't. Kneeling, her ankles and wrists imprisoned, her arms above her head, she could not escape. She couldn't avoid the fingers tickling her belly and sides, her upper arms and shoulder blades. She couldn't stand it, but neither could she avoid it. She could only suffer, squirming and laughing, as her tormentor sent tickle-sensations into her skin wherever and however he pleased.
Then Susanna's perceptions changed, with the suddenness of a card being flipped over. Just as she was about to beg for the tickling to stop, it turned into pleasure. Unbearable pleasure, as those masculine fingers danced down her spine, just as it had been unbearable agony moments before.
Susanna still laughed, unable to make herself stop, and she still squirmed, unable to keep herself from trying to twist away, but now she was desperate for her struggles to fail. She felt those fingers raking her soles, first on her right foot, and then her left, and spikes of pleasure ran up her legs as the tickle-sensations poured into her. She was glad of the strong chains holding her to the platform, and the strong arms of the salesman that held her in place for that desperately desirable tickle-torment that her new Master was inflicting upon her.
The tickling stopped. Susanna sobbed, once, twice, and shivered. A cold fear blew through her. Maybe she wasn't good enough. Maybe her new Master didn't want her. Maybe he wouldn't buy her after all. Maybe...
"I guess she is ticklish, after all," Master said, a huge grin on his face.
The salesman kept his own smile professional. "I guess she is."
"What's her asking price?" Master raised his hand. "And don't tell me what a bargain I'm getting.
The salesman opened his mouth, and closed it again. His smile grew a shade more genuine. "$2,000," he said at last.
"You said you'd knock some off her price," Master answered, and the haggling began. Haggling over her! Back and forth the sales man went with Master, and then Master said, "$1,700 and you pay the registration, along with all the other nickle-and-dime fees."
"Done!" the salesman said. He flipped the switch lowering the plexiglass, and taped a red 'SOLD' sign to it. The two men then shook hands.
Susanna ignored the envious looks that the other slaves at shot her from their own platforms. She had been sold!
(end of chapter 1)
