 |
Another installment in Harry
Whittington’s plantation porn saga. |
Trigger warning: It’s plantation
porn. ’Nuff said.
If one were asked to name an especially horny
time in American history, the 1850s likely wouldn’t make the top ten, yet SECRET
OF BLACKOAKS, the second installment in Lance Horner’s plantation porn series by Harry
Whittington writing as Ashley Carter, describes the antebellum South like it was the height of the sexual revolution. From its first chapter, when the new master of the
Blackoaks plantation, Styles Kenric, gives his hunky young slave Moab a morning
hummer before starting his day, to its last, when Moab, having since fled the
plantation, lifts the skirt of his fellow escapee to remove a bullet from her
leg and feels an “acute stirring in his loins” upon seeing her bare ass, sex is always at the forefront of people’s minds.
At the end of 1976’s
Master of Blackoaks, the titular master Ferrell Baynard dies. However,
his oldest son Ferrell-Junior, wracked with guilt over his failure to stop the gang rape
of his girlfriend Lorna June, has entered a monastery to become a priest, leaving
the door open for his scheming brother-in-law Styles Kenric to seize control of
the plantation. In this 1978 follow-up, Styles realizes he fought to become
captain of a sinking ship. Blackoaks has massive debts, its cotton crops aren’t
bringing in the money like they used to, and the one product sustaining the
plantation, Ferrell Baynard’s famous corn liquor, can’t be produced since the distillery
burned down. Making matters worse, Ferrell Baynard’s widow, Miz Claire, showing
signs of dementia (she frequently urges Styles and others to wait for her dead
husband to return before making any decisions), has elected to host the wedding
of her “big breasted cousin from Charleston,” piling on more debt on top of the
debt incurred from Ferrell Baynard’s funeral.
But Styles isn’t
going to let the plantation’s shaky finances stop him from his dream of turning
Blackoaks into a premier slave breeding operation. By quickly—and coldly—selling
off slaves and arranging a line of credit at the local bank (run by Lorna
June’s husband Luke Scroggings), Styles stabilizes Blackoaks’ finances in the
short term, with enough capital left over to fund future investments, i.e.,
slaves. Specifically, Styles wants to purchase women of Fulani origin to mate
with his two prized male Fulani slaves, Blade and Moab, the whole plan
discussed like he’s planning to sell purebred Rottweilers. This is not comfortable reading.
His plans are
almost derailed when Jamie Lee, the aforementioned big-breasted cousin from
Charleston, is caught fucking Moab by her fiancé Link Tetherow (yes, Link
Tetherow), described as handsome and muscular, but walking “slightly
spraddled-legged, as if he were for some reason tender of crotch.” She accuses
Moab of rape, but the Baynards don’t readily buy her story since Jamie Lee has
not-so-discreetly been sampling all the cocks of Blackoaks, including the one attached
to Morgan, the learning-impaired youngest Baynard son, the experience turning the
teenager into a compulsive masturbator. The Baynards manage to hold off a lynch
mob, headed by the vile Gil Talmadge who instigated the gang-rape of Lorna June,
while a visiting Ferrell-Junior convinces Link to tell the gang of bloodthirsty
rednecks that it was all a misunderstanding, implying that he might out Link as
one of the Lorna June’s rapists to her husband—and the Tetherows’ creditor—Luke
Scroggings (this assumes Lorna June hasn’t revealed the identity of her rapists, which actually tracks as Lorna June likely understood that she would be stigmatized, not her rapists). Nevertheless, it’s not until Miz Claire, in one of her more lucid
moments, shoots Gil Talmadge’s prize slave Arthur that the lynch mob backs down.
The wedding goes on as planned, and Jamie Lee and Link exit the book.
With the wedding
out of the way, Styles puts his energy into turning Blackoaks into a premier
slave breeding operation. To that end, he travels to Tallahassee to purchase a
female slave of Fulani origin. Enter Ahma, who is tall, beautiful, barely 16
years old and very angry, with a history of running and fighting enslavement at
all costs, even killing a man to get away. “You’ll never break her,” warns fellow
plantation owner Cleatus Dennison. But Styles, already miffed that he’s not
treated with proper deference as the new master of Blackoaks, is determined to
prove all the naysayers wrong and buys Ahma anyway. The trip back to Alabama is
a long one, made longer by Ahma’s behavior, starting with her attempting to
flee Styles’s carriage (or kill herself):
Luckily, the
carriage was moving at a slow clip or the girl would have been dead. Though she
was shackled, wrists and ankles, she had lunged over the tailboard of the
converted carriage. She hung there, head down, her black hair dragging on the
rutted road.
Her face was pallid
and she was fighting for breath, almost unconscious when Laus, Perseous [slaves traveling
with Styles] and Styles ran back and lifted her again into the carriage.
Styles poured her a cup of water from the canteen. She stared at him, refused
to touch it. “Why do you want to kill yourself?” he demanded.
She did not answer,
merely stared at him, her eyes bleak with hatred.
Later, they stop at
a rundown farm to buy some food from the owners who can barely feed themselves.
After Ahma spits a mouthful of clabber into his face,
Styles, struggling to keep his composure, tries to sell her on life at
Blackoaks, as if she has a choice in the matter.
“Two beautiful
Fulani boys are waiting for you up at Blackoaks, Ahma. Blade and Moab. They
will belong to you alone. You’ll live with them. You’ll have good food—none of
this cracker hog-swill. Good food, a nice soft bed. Long nights with Blad in
your arms. You’ll want him, Ahma. No matter how much you hate me, that’s how
much you’re going to love Blade. Why don’t you behave and eat so you’ll look
beautiful for Blade? You’ll make babies together, Ahma. You and Blade.
Beautiful pure blood Fulani children.”
Now she spoke,
moaning, a savage sound of heartbreak. “Babies? For you to sell, white Masta?
Sell like you bought me yesterday?” She raged, fighting at her bonds, tears
streaming down her cheeks….
Styles’s shoulders
sagged. He walked slowly around the carriage and swung up into the seat,
waiting for the [B]lack men to climb in. It looked like a long, hard journey
home….
However, Ahma’s
resistance to slavery melts—or at least temporarily subsides—the moment she
meets Blade. Suddenly, fucking Blade is more important than a life of servitude,
conveniently allowing Secret of Blackoaks to put a pin in Ahma’s fiery
resistance until the novel’s finale.
Styles isn’t
entirely reassured, however. It seemed to him that women were bitches. Some
of them were violent bitches. Ahma had already proved her violence. She needed
a good fucking—the kind the Mt. Zion louts called “a good horse-fucking.” But
Styles soon learns he’s got bigger problems than a slave that may/may not be
tamed by Blade’s formidable cock. While he was in Florida, his wife Kathy ran
off with Hunt Campbell.
Sex, Booze
and Yellow Fever
 |
The British edition of Secret
of Blackoaks. The U.K. version of
Blade is closer to what one would expect,
though still smaller than the
Michael B. Jordan-esque physique
I’d imagined. |
That Kathy would
have an affair with Hunt Campbell is hardly a surprise. It was
heavily teased near the end of Master of Blackoaks that Kathy was strongly tempted by Hunt, and the couple’s
interactions in Secret of Blackoaks make their affair inevitable. When Hunt is fired after Styles deems tutoring Morgan a waste of money, Kathy immediately re-hires him as her French teacher. Hunt is again sent packing by Styles, told
that he needs to be gone by the time he returns from Florida. Styles's absence provides the Kathy with the perfect opportunity to escape (she’d resolved she could pay
the price of living unmarried as Hunt’s mistress; she could not endure losing
him and remaining suffocated and starved as Styles’s wife).
They end up in New
Orleans, spending most of their time boning in their hotel suite. Kathy is shy,
easily embarrassed when Hunt disrobes in front of her (“I’m proud of my
manhood. I’ve nothing to hide,” Hunt tells her) but is suddenly as uninhibited
as a Bourbon Street hooker a few orgasms later (“Do you want to—fuck me?”).
Their days and nights are all fun and cum until they leave their hotel room one
day and are spotted by the Bretherton sisters, old maids who live at a
plantation 10 miles away from Blackoaks.
It doesn’t take
long for news of Kathy and Hunt being spotted in New Orleans to reach Styles. Styles,
determined to maintain his honor, explains that the Bretherton sisters must be
mistaken, Kathy is away visiting family in Charleston. He then immediately
plans to track her down. Instead of traveling to New Orleans himself, though,
he decides to prepare Blade to make the trip. Here’s where the book really
strains credulity. Styles’s plan to manipulate Blade into seducing or, better
still, raping Kathy by feeding him stories about how she has always secretly
desired Blade, is diabolical, but sending Blade to travel across Alabama unaccompanied
in the 1850s, with nothing more than a letter of introduction, a purse full of
coins and newly acquired basic reading skills, sounds like a death sentence. Still,
I was entertained by the descriptions of Blade getting prepped for his journey,
with Whittington always sure to keep the reader apprised of Blade’s huge dick,
be it through Styles’s grooming (“[Kathy] told me she kept thinking about that
big staff of yours, Blade.”), Blade getting scrubbed down by three houseboys (“Let
them wash you down there, Blade—gets sweated.”) or when Blade tries on a freshly
tailored suit, which shows off “the outline of Blade’s manhood at the crotch of
the skintight trousers.”
Styles could, of
course, just leave well enough alone as Kathy and Hunt’s relationship is
rapidly disintegrating. Hunt quickly comes to the realization that life with
Kathy, a woman used to being cared for by others, is an expensive proposition.
His savings are rapidly dwindling, especially now that he’s rented an apartment
and hired a servant for them, and he’s been unsuccessful in securing another
tutoring gig, an unfortunate consequence when your approach to job hunting
consists of sitting back and hoping word of mouth marketing pays off.
Furthermore, Hunt becomes increasingly paranoid, certain Styles is close to
finding them. He already suspects (correctly) that he’s being followed. Hunt starts
drinking more to soothe his jangled nerves. It’s not long before he prefers
getting drunk to getting laid.
Adding to Hunt’s
stress is the yellow fever epidemic sweeping through New Orleans, killing thousands. Hunt may be hot, but he’s
a coward, wanting to avoid physical pain at all costs. He knows staying in New
Orleans means risking disease or, worse, being murdered by Styles. Staying with
Kathy means financial ruin. So, early one morning, he leaves a letter and $500
for Kathy and flees the city.
Kathy spends the
first few days of Hunt’s abandonment in denial. Then she contracts “yellow jack,”
whereupon her housekeeper says fuck no! and bolts, taking the $500 Hunt
left for Kathy on her way out the door. Shortly after the housekeeper exits the
apartment, Joe Bullock, a sleazy P.I. hired by Styles and the man following
Hunt earlier, enters. He discovers Kathy asleep in bed, covered in her own vomit.
“You poor little bitch,” he remarks before leaving her for dead.
Styles Loses
his Shit
Blade does eventually
make his way to New Orleans, and while his journey isn’t easy, he isn’t
mistreated as badly as one would expect. Styles’s letters
of introduction have no sway over the pervading racism of the time, the only
courtesy innkeepers extend is allowing Blade to park his carriage behind their
establishment and camp out there (Blade still gets a blowjob from a kitchen
slave because the demands of smut override believability).
There’s a long
stretch devoted to Blade’s misadventures upon arriving in New Orleans, including
his meeting a flamboyant pimp, having a night of fun on Congo Square and
tangling with a vengeful cop, but let’s skip ahead. Blade finds Kathy nearly
dead of yellow fever and enlists the help of a Marie Laveau-esque character to nurse her back to health, or at least healthy enough
to travel. They stop at the same inn that had previously refused Blade a room,
but as Kathy’s slave he is grudgingly allowed to sleep indoors, though his
being permitted to sleep in her room just doesn’t track. Were she
accompanied by a female slave, I could believe it. A big strapping Black man sleeping
in the same room as a white lady in the antebellum South? Not so much.
The sleeping
arrangement is a plot contrivance, of course, employed to facilitate Blade’s
seduction of Kathy. While their eventual hooking up is consensual, it kind of
plays out like a guy putting the moves on his best friend’s ex while she’s
still crying about being dumped. I’ll admit I lost patience with this particular
chapter, largely because Whittington draws out the will-they-or-won’t-they way longer
than he should. By the chapter’s midpoint I was mentally screaming JUST FUCK
ALREADY!
Long story short,
Kathy gives in, has some of the most mind-blowing orgasms of her life—so powerful
that she forgets the lovin’ Hunt put on her—and immediately regrets what she’s
done, whereupon she kills herself by stabbing herself in the heart with Blade’s
knife, holding the knife’s hilt reminding her—I shit you not—of “the way Blade
had drawn her clasped hand up and down the rigidity of his own staff.” Even
when a character is committing suicide, sex remains top of mind.
Remarkably, Blade manages
to hide the wound and convince the innkeeper that Kathy passed away from yellow
fever. On his return trip to Blackoaks it dawns on Blade that he was used.
Kathy had never desired him (Styles was actually describing his own desires for
Blade’s body). Styles had used him. By the time he returns to the plantation he’s
good and pissed and hungry for vengeance.
Everyone at
Blackoaks is grief stricken when Blade returns with Kathy in a box, except Styles,
who is described as having “the stony look of a man who has been cheated.” What
pushes him over the edge is seeing the note Kathy wrote to him, revealing that
she did, in fact, take her own life. Worse, is the letter’s tone, which isn’t
contrite but defiant, ending with the line: I found ecstasy only with your
Negro slave.
And then Styles
loses his shit. He accuses Blade of murdering Kathy, and Blade accuses Styles
of lying to him, and that Styles is guilty of killing her. Styles orders Blade shackled
and whipped, at which point Blade, out of fucks to give, punches the unhinged
master and attempts to strangle him. Now an apoplectic Styles isn’t just
content with having Blade whipped, he wants him branded as well, leading to the
following harrowing scene:
Styles lifted the
branding iron and advanced toward Blade. Ahma screamed and tried to fight free.
Perseus and Moab held her. But Blade did not move. When the huge R [for “runner”]
was inches from Blade’s face, Styles hesitated, waiting for Blade to whimper,
to plead.
Suddenly Styles
thrust the branding iron with all his strength into Blade’s face. Ahma’s
raging, animal screams were the only sound. It was as if not a man or woman
breathed while that branding iron seared Blade’s face. The sharp, sizzling
sound of fried flesh was loud in the silence. Blade’s left eye melted under the
heat., its socket seared, red hot and empty. The flesh was burned away to the
bone from his forehead, foreskull, and nose. His mouth cooked and split like broiled
meat. His teeth were bared through the break in his lips in a permanent
horrible grimace. His right eye broiled, gray, lying like an oyster in the
heat-seared socket. He was completely blind.
The savage branding
of Blade triggers an uprising, though the revolt is not led by Ahma. The other
slaves think her inaction is because she’s distraught over losing Blade, who was
killed—mercifully—shortly after he was branded, shot by Miz Claire at his
insistence. However, Ahma reveals to Moab her real reason for not participating
in the uprising: “You let them go….They scairt...they stupid n[ope!]…they don’t
know they got to kill all the whites or they dead….They let one white alive to
say they name—they gets killed.” Instead, she plans to escape during the
ensuing melee, urging Moab to run with her.
Once Styles hears
the commotion and sees most of Blackoaks up in flames (only the main house is
spared), he goes outside to investigate and is immediately jumped by four men,
led by Perseus, stripped and raped. They hadn’t killed him because they
wanted him alive, the object of their raging scorn and ridicule, the white man
who screamed like a woman as he was being sodomized in the grass.
The distasteful
coda to that scene is when Styles, having mostly recovered from his gang-rape, spares
Perseus’s life on the condition that “you give it to me—like did that night of the
revolt.” Not only does this conflate rape with sex, but this passage also perpetuates a myth
that bottoms are into pain. Then again, what was I expecting from plantation
porn, political correctness?
Meanwhile, Ahma and Moab are desperately trying to stay one step ahead of a search posse—involving many of the same men who were part of the lynch mob in the first part of the book—as they make their way north. Ahma is shot, never mind that Styles strictly instructed members of the posse that he wanted the escaped slaves brought back alive. Ahma’s wound isn’t fatal, but it will seriously impede her ability to travel. She urges Moab to keep going without her, but he refuses to leave her. They’re situation seems hopeless, until they encounter an abolitionist ex machina.
Less N-words
than Django Unchained, at Least
Like its
predecessor, Secret of Blackoaks was difficult to put down, no matter
how uncomfortable it got. And though it takes a few side trips from its main
storyline, it’s got a more cohesive plot than Master of Blackoaks.
That said, I must
admit—guiltily—that I liked Master of Blackoaks more. Though Secret
of Blackoaks is fairly well-paced, there are moments where the book seems
stuck in place, such as Blade cajoling Kathy into having sex. Other parts seem
like padding, included as just another a way to work in a few more gratuitous sex
scenes, even when they ultimately serve the plot, like Blade’s adventures on Congo Square in New Orleans or Moab’s continued affair with the field boss’s wife
Florine.
But perhaps the
book’s biggest missed opportunity—and Whittington’s biggest stumble—is the
handling of the Ahma character. The story would have been more interesting had
she been the driving force behind the uprising, convincing the complacent
slaves of Blackoaks that even though they’re treated relatively well by the
Baynards, they’re still slaves. Instead, her anger is immediately soothed by
Blade’s huge dick. I know this isn’t Roots, but it would’ve been more satisfying
in some instances if Whittington aimed higher than between his characters’ legs.
Though Secret of
Blackoaks doesn’t pack the same punch as its predecessor, it’s still engrossing
and appalling, and if nothing else, features slightly fewer n-words than Django
Unchained. Recommended for Harry Whittington completists. Everyone else can
be assured that they won’t be bored, but they will be judged if they dare read
it in public.
 |
I’ve only read a few books by Lance Horner (Rogue Roman,
The Mahound), but I always got a gay vibe from his writing.
So, maybe it’s not a surprise that Whittington borrowed
the name “Kenric” as the last name of Blackoaks’
sole gay character. |
