Onus

---

COLD!

My head jerked up, my skin leaped into goosebumps, I snatched for my jacket, crying out at the draft of icy murderous cold on my bare upper body.

"Enjoy your nap, freak?"

I was still fumbling numbly with the cloth when he grabbed my upper arms and yanked me out into the freezing cold. I shrieked and squirmed. The snow was landing on my skin, burning the sensitive patches were the skin was soft and pink and unprotected. I broke away and I fell into snow that was soft and loose, crying out when my hands landed in the cold. Burning

I looked up and it was dark. No city lights. No roads or skyscrapers or streetlights or cars or shops or pavement. Just a single narrow asphalt tendril, peeling away from a single two-lane road, leading to two buildings, with a single yellow porchlight between them. The porchlight was obscured by flying snow, turning it to a fuzzy gold corona.

We were in the country. I was further from the place I had been born, than I had ever been in my life.

"Mama." I moaned softly. Then one of the EO's grabbed my upper arms and yanked me away from the deep snow on either side of the narrow driveway. He marched me up the path, gripping my upper arms tight enough to make me whimper softly. Feel it even through the shock and numbing fear.

My eyes were closed, and my feet were dragging. Through my lids, I could feel the yellow porchlight getting brighter.

The door opened and we were inside. I breathed in the warmer air. The EO dropped me and I scrambled to my feet, trying to run inside, find a back door, get out.

I ran into a man that was built like a wall, who snatched me by my upper arm and my hair. I whimpered and stood still, so he wouldn't pull my hair. I tried to look around, but the lights were so bright that they hurt my eyes.

"Damn... You're really cleared out."

"Ayup. There was a chinaman who came through here. Bought my whole stock. Lemme see what you brought me here.

He put his finger under my chin and forced my face up. The lights were so bright. I kept my eyes closed, but I could dimly see his outline through my lids. See his silver hair and the gleam of his glasses.

"You been holding out on me, young man? Last two girls you brought me were nowhere near as pretty as this one. It's a shame there isn't a bigger market for young whelps like this. If he was a girl, I'd be able to sell him for maybe eighty thou. Take off his pants, I want to check something."

I struggled weakly when the EO came behind me and grabbed my sweatpants. He yanked them down while the man in front of me shook me like a disobedient dog. I whimpered and tried to hold my pants up with my hands.

I felt a chill draft on my upper thighs as he managed to yank down the sweatpants. All that was left were my badly stained briefs. I was ashamed at how dirty they were. I tried to keep them clean, but they were the only underwear that I had.

He made a low disgusted sound in the back of his throat while pulling down my underpants.

"Hold his arms... Goddamn, would you look at that."

The EO grabbed my wrists and yanked them behind my back. He kept his other hand on my hair, to hold me up and keep me whining and barely able to move. I felt a cold dry hand cupping my groin. I felt him pinch my penis hard between two fingers to move it aside. He squeezed and fondled my balls. I couldn't make a sound. The pure indignity of it had just shut me up. I let out a small squeak of pain when he patted my scrotum, jiggling the tender flesh.

"Ha, not a gelding, but a stud! I change my mind. This little stud still has all of his tackle. He has the vasectomy scar here, but still has his widdle nuts. Do you know how fucking hard it is to find one of the bug-eyes that still has it's junk?"

"I can imagine."

Tears were streaming down from my eyes. I tried to open them, the lights were still very harsh. I could see that we were in a barn, standing on concrete floor dusted here and there with straw. He had several large boxy horse stalls on either side of a narrow path. I could see a small door open, and a little well-lit office behind it. A large young man with a boiled-pink birthmark on his face was leaning against one of the stalls, eating corn-nuts from a bag. Staring at me was muddy emotionless eyes.

"Please." I whispered. "I... I wanna go home."

They ignored me. The grey-haired man with the glasses and the cold hard hands turned to the young man leaning against the wall. "Nelson? Get the new stock into one of the stalls. Give it a bath and some feed. I'm going to dicker for a bit."

Nelson got closer. He was massive, over six feet with a broad body hard with muscle and fat. Nelson grabbed me by the throat and manhandled me over to one of the stalls, my pants still tangled around my ankles. I was gasping and crying for air.

I greyed out for a few moments, from the stress and the fear and the lack of oxygen. When Nelson released his cruel grip on my throat, I looked around dumbly and I was in one of the stalls, sitting on the ground with a heavy metal chain around my wrists and Nelson yanking my sweatpants and shoes and socks away. I kicked at him, trying to get him away. I wanted to pull my pants up. I didn't want to be so naked.

He dug his thumb into the sensory patch on my lower shin. I squealed and stopped fighting, I let him take my pants away, cringing from him. It wasn't fair. It just wasn't fair.

He left the stall without closing the door. I weakly stood and walked towards the door, but my chain only let me go to the middle of the cell. I tried to work my hands out of the chain but it was too tight.

Nelson came back with a hose.

---

I felt so numb. Numb to the pain, to the cold. Numb to any emotion but misery.

I was shivering in the corner of a horse stall. Naked like an animal. My body red and raw from the powerful jets of the hose. Straw sticking to my legs and hair.

After shivering like a wet puppy in the corner, after crying weakly for what must have been an hour, Nelson came back.

I cowered against the wall. The only sound I could make was this weak frightened mewling under my breath. He threw in a blanket. It was a large pink blanket. Made of rough quilted wool. It was stained and frayed and stiff, in a strange shape. With odd clasps dangling from bits of it. I realized that it was an old horse blanket. But I didn't care. I reached for it and I wrapped it around my wet raw skin.

Then he took a shallow paper plate and walked in. As he walked in I cringed into the corner. I could see a smile on his dopey birth-marked face. He liked how afraid I was. He set the paper plate down in front of me, and I whimpered as he loomed over me.

He just grinned. He reached down for the plate. I saw that there was a meal on the plate. A real meal. White rice and some carrots and a greasy chicken leg. He took the chicken leg and took a big bite of it. Grease smearing out of his mouth. He was less than two feet away from me, eating my dinner while I cringed. Too cowed and afraid to do anything about it.

He stripped the chicken down before leaving with a smirk on his stupid face. I waited till he closed the door before falling on the dinner. Eating the rice and carrots with my fingers and picking scraps of chicken from that bone. Even the gristly bits. I gnawed the bone, sucking on it to get the flavor. Sucking and chewing on the bone was soothing. It soothed my frantic brain.

I realized that I was gnawing on the bone like a dog. That I was naked and chained up in a horse stall, with a filthy horse blanket sticking to my damp skin. I cried weakly, while sucking on the knob of the bone for grease.

I eventually fell asleep with the bone in my mouth.

---

"Up, Up."

I dragged my eyes open. I had barely been able to sleep, drifting in and out of consciousness all night. I stretched my long legs, looking at the bits of straw stuck to my skin. I folded them back under the horse blanket, wincing at the pops and crackles. The chain clinked as I clumsily wrapped the blanket tighter around myself.

The horse stall was made of wood for about five feet up. Where the wood ended, there were vertical iron bars up to the ceiling. I saw the older man's face appear between two of the iron bars, glancing down at me before using his keys to unlock the door.

I was just glad that it wasn't Nelson.

He stepped into the stall. He was wearing a grey plaid shirt and jeans. He had brown work boots and was wearing gloves. The keys were in one hand. A long thin bamboo cane in the other. It had a wrapped leather handle, and it was thinner than my little finger.

He stood over me. Looking down at me with a thoughtful expression. I was about to try and speak, when he spoke over me.

"Hold out your arm."

I just did it. Without thinking. He brought the cane down with a flick of his wrist, not even swinging.

I let out a wounded yelp and drew my hand back. The skin wasn't broken, but raw and bright red. The pain was hot and throbbing. A darkening welt on the web of flesh between my thumb and forefinger.

"Did you see how I barely moved my arm? This particular toy is illegal to use on anyone under eighteen. Any more than twenty-four strokes. The law applies to humans of course. IF you disobey me, I will whale on you with this. Until I feel you have learned your lesson. I'm a very fair man, and if you are a good boy, that will be the only time my cane touches you here. Got it?"

I nodded, surprised tears gathered in the corners of my eyes.

He got down in the corner and unlocked the padlock that fastened the chain to the stall. The other end of the chain had been padlocked to a metal socket in the wall. A loop was around his wrist, so even when the cane wasn't in his hand, it was close.

"Get up and walk out of the stall in front of me."

---

When I was six years old, my mama tried to bring me to a fair.

At the time I didn't know, but the bulk of the Onus children were in government 'homes'. A place like a jail, overcrowded and filthy and low on resources.

She hid my white hair under a baseball cap. She rubbed spray tan all over my exposed arms and face and neck. I whined when some of the stuff got in my sensory patches, it felt caustic. She covered my unnatural eyes with sunglasses. I didn't mind, because the sun usually felt too bright to my eyes anyway.

The disguise was not very good. Spray tan was supposed to add a sheen of color over naturally pigmented skin. It just made my skin look an odd orangey-peach color, like a burnt doll. She hadn't been able to put any on or around my fingertips and palms. So we went to the fair, but to my confusion and dismay, we hadn't gone to any of the rides or games. We had just wandered around, my mama too afraid to get close to the attractions for fear of the ruse being discovered.

It was just around the time that early deaths of the mothers was being correlated to giving birth to Onus children.

I was having some fun anyway. She bought me cotton candy, and I was delighted with the fluffy sugar-rush that I could taste with my fingertips as well as my long sensitive tongue. Just being outside was a novel experience for me at that point.

Then we saw the ponies. Mama let me watch by the fence.

The ponies were bored and tired and thirsty in the intense heat. Four ponies tied to a metal contraption that went in circles. Being ridden by kids way too big for them.

One of the ponies made me jump up and down with excitement. It had a pure white coat, a white mane, and deep black eyes, with only a teeny white ring around the edge. The pony looked like me.

After seeing how excited I was, mama finally got in line with me, looking around nervously, terrified that someone would see through my disguise.

We got to the front of the line. I watched closely, and I thought that I would get to ride the white pony. I was bouncing with excitement.

I ran up to the pony when it was my turn. I wrapped my arms around his thick warm white neck. I nuzzled my cheek against it's short velvet coat.

The pony whickered softly into my ear.

"What the hell do you think you're trying to pull, lady!"

I let my tongue leave my mouth and I touched it to the side of the pony's neck. I wanted to taste him, taste the beautiful white-haired pony with eyes so like mine. Back then, I didn't have the inhibitions, the paralyzing fear and shame that I had now.

"That's one of the freaks. Get out of there, get that little monster away from my animals!"

I saw a mother dash into the ring and pull her child off of another pony. People were backing away from the ring. Someone threw a half-full can of soda at me. The soda splashed on me and the can knocked me on the side of my head. I cried with fear and ran to my mama. She gathered me in her arms. I could taste the sticky-sweet soda on my hands, on my sensory patches.

"Please." My mama begged. She was tired and frustrated and stiffening her shoulders. She could hear all of the bad things people were saying about us. "My boy just wants to ride the horse. Just one circle, and we'll go after. He wants this so bad. I'll pay you three times the admission... please."

I remember seeing a security guard getting closer. The man running the booth shouted at him. "This crazy bitch let an Onus brat touch one of my animals! Little freak was licking it!"

The security guard pulled out a pistol. The carny started to protest, and I screamed a moment before the man put the gun to the white pony's forehead and sent a bullet into it.

---

All of this flashed through my head in less than an instant. I was naked, walking in front of him, and we walked into an open space of the barn. The metal device, the leader, the circle, whatever it was called, it was in the center. A big metal cross that you could harness ponies or horses to, to give them exercise.

"Come on boy."

He fastened the padlock at the end of my chain to the end of one of the spokes. Then he backed away. I looked at him, wanting answers. I covered my crotch with my hands. I had never felt more like an animal.

I remembered the spray of red that had come from the pony's head.

"You're cold in the stall. You need to exercise. If you can go for fifty revolutions, then I'll put a heater in your stall. You get a thwack with this for every revolution under fifty. Go."

I put my hands on the rusty bar. Careful so I didn't put any pressure on my sensory patches. I wanted to cover my groin with one hand, but my wrists were chained together, so it was impossible.

I started to walk.

The exercise was easy enough for the first few revolutions. It became repetitive. Dull. I forgot about the shame. That I was naked.

But it took a lot of effort to turn the wheel by myself. My legs felt very weak. I had eaten a meal last night, but for some reason, I felt weaker than I had out on the street. I was so cold, and I was shivering so badly, that my legs felt like they would collapse.

"Thirty two revolutions so far, beastie. Don't slow down now."

As an incentive he thwacked the cane against one of the steel bars. The clang made me flinch, and the sound sent a visceral reaction through me, one of fear and nausea. I whimpered. I had been able to feel the vibration in my hands. I hated the texture of the rusty metal.

I steeled myself and started to walk faster, staring down at the concrete under my feet. There was a piece of straw on the floor. I started counting my revolutions for every time I passed the piece of straw. I got to five, before losing count. My mind felt scattered and weak, unable to process. Like I was half-asleep.

"Forty."

I whined low in my throat. I was so close to exhaustion. If I had been wearing my clothes, if I had had a good night's sleep, this would have been easy. But my strength had been sapped by the vicious hosing and the poor sleep and just the constant state of stress and fear.

I closed my eyes, not caring about trying to count the revolutions. I just forced myself forward. Drawing on my last reserves of strength.

I was slowing badly, barely able to put one foot in front of the other. He came up behind me, smacking the metal bar with the cane. The vibrations, the sound woke a small panicky terror inside of me. I groaned and walked faster.

"Last one, last one, hurry your miserable ass!" He barked.

He stopped banging the cane against the bars and I fell to my knees, my arms hanging limp, but still held up by the chain around my wrists. I was crying under my breath. My whole body was shaking, and my vision was fading in and out. My skin felt cold and numb all over, except for under my arms and between my legs where I felt hot and damp and rank with sweat.

"Good." He barked. He unchained me, and basically dragged me back to the stall. The concrete chafed me where my legs dragged against the floor.

I managed to pull the horse blanket over me, where I was curled up on the floor. An exhausted trembling mess. A little later, I felt some heat on my shoulders, and I knew that he had put the heater in my stall.

---

I sucked on the bone.

It didn't have much taste anymore, but the smooth knob of the bone was soothing. I closed my eyes, and let the heater bake my back. Every few minutes, I turned over, let my back get cold, and warm up my front, and then my feet.

The heater was a little plastic box that he had set in the corner, out of my reach. I turned towards it like a flower to the sun, trying to warm up. I felt so cold.

---

The days started to blur together. Exercise on the frame. Spotty constant sleep. Eating scraps from his meals. Having my meals decimated by Nelson in front of my eyes. Random acts of cruelty from Nelson. Hosings.

---

I recognized that my behavior was becoming animal-like. I never spoke. Any words that I did utter were usually silenced by a welt from the cane. I was being conditioned. Certain keywords and sounds, like a crack from the cane, or a harsh tone, made me flinch and shut down mentally.

---

I was losing track of time.

---

Four other Onus came and went. I never saw them, because I couldn't reach the edge of the stall with my short chain. I couldn't even stand up all of the way. They were all girls. I heard them scream and cry and suffer, during their baths, exercise, and during Nelson's wanton cruelty. He raped them. I had to listen.

I also listened as they were sold. Men came in, wanting girls for whatever depraved reason. They looked in, and said which one they wanted. Money was exchanged. The girls were dragged out.

---

One day, it was my turn.

I flinched and cowered into a tiny ball in the corner of my stall. Nelson and the old man who had bought me were standing in the door. I watched them warily, under the listless fringe of my matted hair.

Nelson had a large plastic bucket.

Nelson held me by the throat, as I cringed against the wall, my breath coming out in short terrified pants. The older man took my chain and clipped the padlock to the iron bars at the very top of the stall, about seven feet up. My chain was so short, that this forced me to stand, with my hands in the air.

Even after several days of being naked and objectified on every level, being this exposed brought frightened tears to my eyes.

I cried brokenheartedly when I dropped the bone and Nelson took it away.

Standing, I was able to see that the bucket was filled with soapy water.

Nelson scrubbed me down like I was an object. I was crying and struggling as he raked a plastic brush up and down my skin. He was a little gentler on my sensory patches, not using the plastic bristles, but a washcloth. Still, the cloth scraping against those sensitive patches was enough to make me scream and thrash.

I was hanging like a slab of meat by the time he was done, crying very softly. He dumped a few buckets of water over my head to rinse away the suds. Then he swept away the straw and took away my waste bucket. He left me wet and naked and completely exposed in my stall. Forced to stand, when my legs felt like they would collapse at any moment.