Not well

Dear diary, (May 20th in the morning)

I slept badly. The disquieting dream had simultaneously instilled fear and aroused dark desires within that left me deeply shaken. This was not the first time my nights were disturbed by erotic fantasies about dominant men treating me like nothing more than a toy for their pleasure, but it was the first time that man was an ebony-skinned African. Even now, hours after I woke in a sweat amidst a tangle of blankets, I can feel my insides heating. In part, at least, because I have had the chance to see this dream figure of a man as he toiled in the stables. The ****'s name is Conrad, it was he who opened the carriage door upon my arrival at Havenhall.

It is not only last night's dream that has me so agitated, but the reading of the will that is to take place in less than an hour. Mr. Naylor has informed me that while he does not know the contents of the last testament, the instructions left by my father indicated that, if possible, I was to be present for its reading. It was a new day and with the opening of the will, and I sensed that a very important event was about to take place, the scope of which I could not fathom. Did my father intend to publicly acknowledge his parentage? And to what extent? It could mean either wealth and power combined with work and leadership on the one hand, or, if the true circumstances of my conception were known, poverty, contempt and even bondage. How clueless I had been when I decided to make my way to South Carolina.

The same light-skinned **** that served us last night (her name, I learned is Angelica) helped me dress and get ready for breakfast. The girl did not say anything of course, but I noticed her nose flare and her eyes take in the rumpled bedding. The musky scent of my arousal must have still lingered in the room even though I opened the French doors to the balcony to let in the morning breeze as soon as I awoke.

I broke my fast with the two lawyers Mr.'s Thornton and Naylor in a sun-lit eastern facing room. The gentlemen were very solicitous and when I asked to be allowed to see more of Havenhall, Mr. Naylor sent one of the slaves out to find Mr. Kyleson.

The plantation overseer agreed, after a silent pause and tightening of his lips, to show myself and Mr. Thornton around some nearby parts of the property. He explained that there was no time for a full tour of the plantation as other pressing chores awaited him. In spite of his initially abrupt manner, the Irishman was a fountain of information as he showed us the now empty barns where the pigs and cattle were bedded at night and the henyard where over twenty speckled hens pecked at the ground.

Next on the tour were the **** pens where almost forty negros lived. The walled-in area consisted of several small houses and two larger wooden structures. A small building for the breeding-aged females was on the western side of the pan and on the far side of the enclosure was a larger sturdier wooden building - the buck-house where the males were locked up each night. The pens were for the most part empty with two older women watching over a gaggle of toddlers running and playing much like any white-skinned child might.

It was in the stables that I saw Conrad. He was mucking out the empty stalls with a pitchfork and barrow wearing only a ragged pair of leggings that ended just below his knees. A black Adonis: the dark skin of his bare back and shoulders gleamed with sweat and when he moved his muscles rippled like the stallion in the neighboring stall.

He was indeed an impressive man with a dominant aura. In Philadelphia, I perhaps could have gotten involved with him discreetly; here in Carolina though it would mean my social ruin and his ****. All the same, his raw sex appeal was undeniable, he was constantly present. I tried to hide my interest in the **** as I unobtrusively watched him work, but Mr. Kyleson must have seen me staring.

“Put your shirt on you damned nigger!” He snapped at the man, “There's a lady present.” It was unfair, I remember thinking at the time, to blame the **** for my lack of discretion but Kyleson clearly felt that the **** needed to be brought down a peg or two.

“That boy struts around the place like he's a rooster in a henhouse.” He muttered as he led Mr. Thornton and me through the stables and back towards the carriage house. “He's sharp as a knife for a darkie, training as a farrier and keeps the others in line when I'm not here, but he sometimes forgets his place. Even more so since Master Heyward started using him as one of our studs.”

Thankfully it was Mr. Thornton who asked about this last part, because as a woman I could hardly follow up on it. Kyleson explained that like in most plantations the female slaves were bred pretty much every other year. With the banning of the trans-Atlantic **** trade, the demand for healthy negros made the sale of the offspring a significant source of income for the plantation.

“The late Mr. Heyward, liked to use this young buck with the younger girls, so all those does waiting for their first time know it's likely to be this bull who's going to break them in.” Kyleson seemed to suddenly remember that he was in mixed company because his suntanned face turned a shade darker, and he mumbled an apology in my general direction before hurriedly stepping away to point out to Mr. Thornton the matched geldings that were used as carriage horses.

I was left alone long enough to look back at the muscular **** standing in the stables and wonder at the man whose duties included 'breaking in young women.' No wonder Conrad had that aura of sexual power.

__

On this plantation, he was in effect much like some ancient Nubian king with a harem of beautiful concubines to deflower and seed. I am ashamed to report that the disturbing dream of the night before once again was sharp in my thoughts, and I could feel my insides beginning to boil.

When Mr. Thornton and I came back to the salon, my cousins had already arrived and were waiting impatiently for the proceedings to get underway. It did not take long to deduce that Miles and Priscilla Manton came believing they were the main heirs and that the only question remaining was how their uncle would divide Havenhall between them. When introduced, they gave me curious looks that said nothing of affection or kinship. For them I was at best an irrelevant bystander and at worse a competitor.

“Just who are you, Miss DiFlorentini? Neither Priscilla nor I can recall ever hearing Uncle Tim speak of you?” After pointedly ignoring me for the first ten minutes, Mr. Manton threw the question at me like a dog guarding his bone. Left unsaid was the follow up question as to why _I was showing up here at this point in time.

The directness and hostility of the query unsettled me and gave me the feeling of not only being unwanted but also hated. I only hoped that these people in particular would not become aware of my true parentage. Thankfully it was Mr. Naylor who answered for me from the doorway, explaining that Mr. Heyward had specifically asked for my presence at the reading. Before Manton could demand more of an explanation, we were invited into the library where the reading was to take place.