The Warrior Victorious

4

I was able to keep from screaming for a while, but the more the liquid dried, the more the pain intensified. It began by stinging just a little, like a faint and not very serious rope burn, but then the sting changed to a sharpened throb, and then to a flaming that felt as though it were eating into my flesh, and finally it began searing so deep that I thought I would be burned to nothing by it. When the pain first started I tried to free my hands to rub at it, to try to brush or rub the liquid off before it dried any more, but I couldn’t free myself no matter what I did. The bindings on my wrists kept me pressed flat against the table, my breasts crushed under me, my head able to raise up no more than a matter of inches. My ankles, too, were held gently but inflexibly, allowing my toes no latitude for digging in, no purchase of any sort. I wanted to get off that table and claw at myself, but it just. wouldn’t let me go!

“Am I mistaken, or did I just hear a whimper?” the woman in yellow asked in a faintly interested voice, moving a bit to her left so that I might see her. I had my right cheek pressed hard into the padding of the table as my mind fought to deny what was happening, and she looked down at me and smiled.

“You might be interested to know that no real damage is being done to you,” she said, her easy, conversational tone making me shiver. “Your nerve endings may not believe that, but it’s entirely true. You may feel as though the skin is being whipped off you in strips, but it isn’t really happening. Doesn’t that put your mind at ease’?”

Just then my mind was too busy clanging with shock, as more and more of the lines dried in turn. I couldn’t believe how high the pain was growing, how the entire back of me felt as though it were being set on fire. I tried to pull at the bindings again, then couldn’t keep from crying out, my own movement having made it all flame even higher. After that I fought to lie still, to breathe as shallowly as possible, to do nothing that would add to the rising agony, but then an unexpected cross-line flared and my body twitched and then I screamed and the scream made it worse and I wanted to convulse but the bindings wouldn’t let me and I screamed again and again and again and

After an endless time surrounded by burning red I must have fainted, but I think I was screaming again even before I completely woke up. It went on and on like that, agonizing consciousness occasionally slipping into black times of no real relief, determination forgotten, noble intentions forgotten, only a very small me left right in the center of it all. Finally, after ages of knowing nothing but intense agony, I awoke to find that the level of pain had fallen just a little, enough so that my raw throat could settle for mewling instead of screams. I think I was terrified, but there wasn’t enough sense of judgment left in me to be sure.

“You poor dear, you look exhausted,” a female voice said from somewhere to my left, and a hand touched my sweatsoaked hair. “I tried to give you enough time to search for that sorrow we were talking about, and you’ve apparently used every bit of it. Were you successful, or do you need just a little longer?”

“No, please, no,” I whispered, unable to open my eyes, helpless to stop trembling, the small bit of me left inside shuddering in terror. “I’m sorry I did that, please, I’m so sorry, I swear I’ll never do it again, I swear! Don’t bring the rest of the pain back, please don’t . . . ”

“Oh, what a good girl you’re starting to be,” the woman’s voice said with heavy approval, the hand patting my hair again. “But we still remember what a bad girl you were. Are we going to see any more of that bad girl?”

“No, no, I’ll be good, I swear I will,” I babbled, my chest heaving against the padded table. I suddenly thought I was back in the creche, facing the Head after having been found doing something wrong. “Please don’t hurt me like that again, I swear I’ll be good.”

“Of course you will,” the woman’s voice said, satisfaction now mixed in with the approval. “To help you keep that in mind some of the pain will be left with you, but not too much of it. Tell me: what will you do if the Prime Jer-Mar is generous enough to find interest in you again?”

If my eyes had been open I would have closed them, in a useless attempt to keep the tears from flowing out and running down my cheeks. That time, with my eyes already closed, it didn’t help at all. The tears slid down my face to the padded table under my right cheek, starting a pool that would unfortunately not be deep enough to drown in. The only thing available for me to drown in was pain, that and deep, curling shame.

“I’ll do anything he wants me to,” I whispered, the sobs already beginning. “Anything, anything . . .”

Anything I had to in order to keep that agony from touching me again, to put an end to the need to scream. I’d thought I was strong and noble and brave, but all I was was a coward, shivering at the thought of being hurt like that again. To be brave I needed something I didn’t have, something I couldn’t even remember, but something I knew I’d never have again. I’d been lying to myself, thinking I could do it alone, and now I’d been taught that I couldn’t. When you’re all alone all you can really do is cry, and they were cruel enough to let me learn that.

I was so exhausted I fell asleep, and when I woke up there were two more women in the room. They were slender, young, and seriously quiet, both dressed in onepiece things like uniforms that weren’t uniforms, made of heavy material in a dull green color. They watched without comment while I was released from the table, possibly wondering why I moved so slowly and carefully, possibly already knowing. The all-consuming agony was gone, but I still felt as though I’d been whipped over the entire back of me, as far down as my ankles. Worse than that was the sense of defeat I was sunk into, but defeat doesn’t make you draw your breath in sharply if you accidentally lean back against something without thinking. All it does is make you not really care that you’ve caused yourself unnecessary hurt; you’ve already accepted so much hurt, what difference can a little more make?

The two women in dull green had brought a freshening kit with them, the sort that people take with them when they go off on vacation to leave civilization behind, but would rather not part with certain essentials. The kit used sonics or something to clean you when water wasn’t available, and most people agreed it did a better job than water. The only thing it didn’t do was satisfy the way water did, but you can’t have everything. If you wanted to be clean you used the kit, and waited until you got home to your bath to be satisfied.

The freshening kit took away the smell and sweat of too much pain, and I couldn’t even find enough curiosity in me to ask why I hadn’t been taken instead to the shower stalls I’d been told about. The two Secs and the woman in yellow watched while I was made clean again and my hair was brushed, and then they watched while I was dressed. My thin cloth smock had been put somewhere, and in place of it the women produced something I couldn’t at first believe they were serious about. The underneath layer consisted of having my nipples brushed with something wet before golden glitter was sprinkled on them, and a very thin, fine, glittering, golden metal chain girdle was closed around my hips. The girdle also had a thin section that went down between my legs and up again to be fastened behind, but when I tried to tell the women they’d made it too tight, I discovered it hadn’t been an accident. My unimportant observation was ignored the way all petty distractions are, and the women went on with their work.

The top layer of my new outfit was something like a robe, high to my throat in front, down to my toes, and almost to my fingertips. In back it was open from my neck down to below my waist and closed from there, with a single thin chain of gold across the middle of my back to hold it properly closed and make it hang right. Wearing it hurt a little despite the fact that the material was so thin it might well have been cobwebs, but the pain wasn’t what bothered me most. The robe was a lovely green and very graceful and delicate, but it was also completely transparent. Under it I was more than naked, much, much more, and everyone who looked at me would be able to see that. I was given nothing for my feet, but that felt more appropriate than surprising. The people around me wore shoes or boots, but not being a people meant I didn’t get to do the same. The woman in yellow came closer to look me over, and then she smiled.

“We’ve taken care of seeing to you this one time, dear, but from now on you’re responsible for dressing yourself,” she said, putting a hand under my chin to raise my head a little. “If and when you’re claimed for a night, you’ll tell someone so that you can be given an outfit that will please the Prime who claimed you. And what will you do for that Prime or any other?”

“Anything he wants me to,” I answered tonelessly, making no attempt to meet her eyes. It didn’t matter what I said or didn’t say, nothing mattered, not any more. There was nothing in the way of fight left in me, and I just didn’t care.

“What a good girl you’re going to be,” the woman said, patting my cheek in approval before taking her hand away. “Leader Quatry and I have discussed the matter, and we’ve decided that although you’ll be going in to join the men at dinner, you needn’t bother letting the chef know where you’re seated. Since you’ve refused nourishment twice today, we’ve decided that it won’t really hurt you if it’s not offered again until tomorrow. By then you’ll know better than to refuse what’s given you, won’t you, dear?”

I could almost feel the smile that was being sent toward me, that and the enjoyment which seemed to fill her. They were going to make me go hungry until they were ready to graciously forgive me, but that wasn’t the added punishment they thought it was. Despite the fact that I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten, I didn’t expect to ever be hungry again. When I’d looked down at my body I’d thought I was thinner than usual, thinner than I was somehow supposed to be, but that was nothing but more help. The end would come sooner that way, with less time that had to pass while I did “everything and anything.” I still couldn’t remember my previous reason for wanting to die, but having a brand-new reason made remembering totally unnecessary.

Since there was nothing left that needed to be done to me, the two women in dull green were allowed to leave, and then the woman in yellow led me and the two Secs back to the dormitory room. When we reached it I could see through the wide windows that it had grown dark out during my time in the other room, and small, distant lights had been lit around the walls to replace the lost sunlight. It still wasn’t anything like bright and cheerful in that big, circular place, but none of the women in it appeared to notice or care. They were all putting the finishing touches on themselves, either happily adjusting gaily-colored, provocative outfits or miserably brushing hair that fell onto nothing but plain, cloth smocks. Possibly one or two looked up as I was led back to my cot and left there, but I really didn’t care. The stares of my fellow victims weren’t what would soon add terribly to the shame I hadn’t been strong enough to keep from touching me.

“Terry, are you all right?” Mera demanded in a whisper as she came away from her cot, glancing nervously at the retreating figures of the ones who had brought me there. “I knew they would punish you for doing something that dumb, I knew it! Sometimes hatchlings are so confused they try refusing to do what they’re supposed to, and when they bring them back they’re always crying but ready to be reasonable. I don’t see any tears, but there’s something-different about you. What did they do to you?”

They defeated me I thought as I turned away from her, wishing I could lie down. But I’d been told I wasn’t permitted to lie down, that it would ruin my outfit if I did, so all I could do was stand. Mera herself wore a pair of trousers with billowy legs and a very short tunic top in a lovely and transparent pink, and being barefoot didn’t seem to bother her any more than it bothered me. We both were obviously used to going barefoot, but I couldn’t quite recall how I had gotten used to it.

“No, Terry, don’t start doing that,” Mera said with something like fear as she came around to stand where I could see her. “Don’t withdraw into depression and simply go through the motions, or they’ll hurt you again. They want you to be eager and attractive for our men, they won’t accept anything else. You have to smile, and laugh at the jokes you hear, and show them that you’re really trying. I’ve seen the results of what they do to bring girls out of depression, and I don’t want that happening to you. ”

I think I shuddered at the thought of their doing something else to me, my hand going to my mouth to keep the violent illness inside, and Mera put her own hand to my arm in the only gesture of comfort she could give. She and I both had outfits on that weren’t supposed to be ruined, and if shed hugged me the way she seemed to want to do, someone would have been displeased.

“Okay, we’ve just decided we’re not going to let something like that happen to you,” Mera said quickly, then put on a smile that almost seemed real. “I know it’s Jer-Mar you have to go with tonight and that you don’t like him, so we’re going to work very hard at understanding and remembering that it’s only for the night. He never pays attention to any one girl for longer than that, so it’s just tonight you have to get through. After that the others will try you, and some of them are really nice. You’ll stay with me as much as you can and do what I do, and then everything will be fine. You just wait and see, they won’t have a reason to hurt you again.”

By that time she sounded completely convinced, but I was convinced of something else entirely. They weren’t going to let me die, they were going to force me to keep on living, and if they couldn’t talk me into it they would hurt me into it. I didn’t know what to do, didn’t know what I could do, but the panic that had begun rising in me wasn’t allowed the time to fill me completely. Musical notes sounded, telling us we had to go in to dinner, and Mera quickly urged me along with her, whispering words of encouragement and reassurance.

The dining room had been subtly changed to project an aura of evening rather than noon, and most of the women were already inside it before the men appeared. It was fairly clear they were making an entrance, their casual clothing of earlier in the day having been changed to the most elegant evening wear it was possible to have. Every imaginable color in the shape of formal suits erupted into the room with their arrival, brilliant ascots adding to the breathless display, and although the women around me had undoubtedly seen the same thing many times before, they gasped as one with awe and delight. I found myself gasping right along with them, but for an entirely different reason. The arousal I’d been made to feel at lunch had been overcome by the presence of pain, but suddenly it was back again, three or four times worse than before. I gasped at the burning itch that flared between my thighs, not understanding why it was happening until I remembered the injection given me by the woman in yellow. I’d thought the injection had had something to do with the liquid fire shed put on me, but maybe it hadn’t . . . .

“Well, well, what do we have here?” a voice drawled from very near, a voice that made me look up. The man Jer-Mar and his friends had reached us, and he stood just a few feet away letting his eyes move deliberately over me. He wore a green formal suit and boots and a gold ascot, and the green of his suit was exactly the same shade as my transparent robe. If I’d had any doubt as to who I’d been given to for that evening, the color scheme was meant to lay them to rest. I hated the look of that arrogant, foolish face, but when he stepped forward to get even closer, my body responded with a gush of moisture that nearly made me gasp again.

“Were you well punished, sweet thing?” he asked with that same insulting amusement, raising one hand to brush a finger across my cheek. “I’d venture to say you were, so I’ll have my apology now. Tell Jer-Mar how sorry you are for being bad, and he’ll tell you if he forgives you.”

“I’m-sorry I was bad,” I managed to get out, completely unable to look at him. “I didn’t know what I was doing, and I won’t do it again. I don’t know what else to say, except that I hope you’ll accept my—”

My words broke off with a grunt as his hand moved to my breast, and I had to close my eyes against what he was making me feel. I couldn’t remember ever needing a man so much in my entire life, and the too-tight chain of the girdle was suddenly turning it a good deal worse.

“I just noticed how stiff your nipples are, my pretty little thing,” he said, laughing at me as he all but ignored the apology he’d asked for. “You’re going to give me a real good ride when I’m ready to take it, aren’t you? I love the taste of eagerness, so I think I’ll have a sip of it now. ”

His fingers left my breast to raise my face, and then he was holding me to him as his lips covered mine. I didn’t want his kiss and yet I needed it very badly, a kiss that usually led to something I needed even more. The way he was holding me made my back hurt, but the pain wasn’t enough to distract me from the more demanding feelings flashing through me. He took the kiss hard with no attempt to share, something that upset me but also did nothing to help, and then he suddenly ended the kiss, let me go, and stepped back.

“And now on to the meal, I think,” he announced to his grinning friends, clearly satisfied over having gotten what he wanted and caring nothing about what it had done to me. The others made sounds of agreement and the ones who hadn’t yet chosen a woman began doing so, the ones with previously chosen founts of adoration spending the waiting time teasing or examining their victims. I discovered that victim really was the perfect word when Jer-Mar blessed me with partial attention of the same kind. His hand slid into the open back of my robe and began to stroke my bottom, but when I moaned and tried to press myself up against him in wordless begging, he pushed me away in disinterested refusal.

It took only a few moments before everyone was ready, and then we all went to a table. The men walked ahead talking to one another, none of them looking back, but there was really no reason for them to look back. Their simpering satellites hurried in their wake as though they were on leashes, their gazes clinging to the backs of the men who had honored them. Mera acted as though she wanted to do almost the same, but she hadn’t lost her determination to watch over me. She coaxed and urged me along with the group, constantly reminding me that it would all soon be over with.

By the time the happy group was seated and meal orders had been given to and received from the table’s autochef, I found I was as completely forgotten about and ignored as the rest of the women. The men were having a friendly disagreement over the best way to attack while still defending, but made no mention of how they were attacking or who, or what they were defending with. Nothing in the way of food was delivered to me, and no one was so unreasonable as to offer me any of theirs.

Sitting in the very comfortable chair was painful in various ways, but it didn’t take long to discover that my mind wasn’t paying attention to the pain. I still felt horribly defeated and crushingly shamed, but there was a very small core of anger beginning to glow under those feelings, the heat of it starting to burn upward and outward. I’d been hurt so badly that the thought of having to face the same agony again made me immediately and automatically ill, but the core of anger was refusing to be affected by any part of that. It was growling with the insistence that no one had the right to treat me the way those people were treating me, and seemed to be demanding that I do something to make them stop. If I hadn’t been so confused and upset I might have laughed at the idea, the completely outrageous idea that I could make them all stop what they were doing to me, but I had the impression the anger inside would have ignored the laughter. It seemed to believe I could do something other than just sit helplessly by, and therefore refused to stop heating up and spreading.

The dinner turned out to be a rather long one, and I would have had to have been dead not to notice that Jer-Mar was purposely dragging it out. The other men seemed to be used to following his lead, and when he ordered another bottle of wine and then sat back to discuss how he intended decorating his new-level apartment, some of his cronies looked faintly surprised but none of them objected. A few of the women around the table had been allowed a taste of the first bottle of wine, but not all of them and none got a second taste. I remembered then what I’d been told about diet restrictions, and the anger inside me took that, too, as fuel.

By the time the mighty Prime finally decided he’d made me wait long enough, the small core of anger in me had grown to triple its original size. The entire back of me felt as though I’d suffered a low-intensity burn, and the tightened chain between my legs had become more than painful. That chain was probably supposed to have added to the raging need I’d been made to feel, but it had done a more effective job on my anger. I remembered thinking I’d never before needed a man so much, but during the time everyone else was eating my mind had apparently been working, and now I seemed to recall an episode when I’d been forced to feel the same way. I couldn’t bring any of the details back, but I was convinced there had been such a time; I’d feared the people who had done that to me, but somewhere deep inside I’d also been furious.

“And now, my friends, I believe I’m in the mood for some entertainment,” that fatuous voice came, accompanied by his rising from the chair next to me. “Come along, sweet thing, and we’ll learn exactly how eager you are to please Jer-Mar.”

This time he waited for me to get to my feet rather than simply moving off, and once I was standing he took my hand and led the way to the center of the dining room. Since I’d been expecting him to show me to his apartment I didn’t understand what was happening, not until he picked me up and then went to one knee to put me flat on the carpeting.

“No, no, my pretty little thing, I don’t want you up again,” he said as I tried to struggle back to my feet, his left fist closing painfully in my hair. “Those in charge of you may have punished you for being a bad little girl, but I haven’t given you all of my punishment yet. I remember what caused your misbehavior; you’ll remember what you earned with it.”

He gestured to one of his now-laughing friends and the man came to take over holding my hair, which freed both of Jer-Mar’s hands. The crony’s fist was almost as tight as his leader’s had been, and although I knew I shouldn’t be struggling, I couldn’t seem to help myself. More and more faces were -starting to join those already circled around where I’d been put on the carpeting, and all of them were laughing. They knew what that-man-was going to do to me and I couldn’t stand the thought of being humiliated like that.

“You do indeed have a sweet, eager body, little thing,” Jer-Mar said as he used both hands to slide the robe up on me, his crouching to one side letting him avoid the kicking of my legs. “We’re all going to see every bit of it and more, and then you’re going to please me. And you do need very much to be pleasing, don’t you?”

He took both of my nipples between his fingers then, squeezing them harder and harder, but not so hard that the pain was a distraction. The people watching laughed at my moan, a reaction I wouldn’t have had without that “help” I’d been given, and I couldn’t keep from closing my eyes in shame. My hands went from trying to push the fist from my hair to beating blindly at the man touching me like that, but apparently that was exactly what he’d been waiting for. His fingers were gone before my wildly swinging hands could reach any part of him, and suddenly there was a body forcing itself between my frantically kicking legs.

“Are you blushing, my precious?” Jer-Mar asked with real amusement in his voice, his elbows keeping my knees to either side of his body. “How sweet to see modesty in a little thing like you, and also how touching. Well, will you look at this. What do we have here?”

Just as though he didn’t know what it was, his hands went to the chain that was now so easily in his reach. I choked when he touched me and tried to get away, but his free hand got a grip on my thigh and then he went on investigating his “find.” It didn’t take long before he had me screaming, but the laughter of the crowd almost drowned me out. Half of the laughter seemed to be vicious delight, maybe even more than half, but part of it felt like desperation to fit in, and knee-weakening relief that it was someone other than them who was being treated like that. It came to me in a vague flash that I was not only frantic but wild enough to imagine strange reactions around me, and then Jer-Mar grew bored with toying with his little “thing.” His fingers detached the chain from the front of the girdle, left me for a moment to presumably see to his own preparation, and then he was thrusting inside me.

I knew how terribly bad off I was, how desperately I needed the attentions of any man, and for that reason was surprised when Jer-Mar’s heavy stroking didn’t drive me deeper into helpless response. After a couple of minutes my mind began to clear, and that was when I noticed I wasn’t doing anything more .than accepting what was being done to me. I wasn’t moaning with delight, or begging him not to stop, or frantic to give him anything and everything. What I felt most strongly was pain in my back, a good part of that due to the fact that Jer-Mar didn’t seem to know better than to rest so much of his weight on me. Like an inexperienced boy he was too wrapped up in working off his excitement, hips pounding and eyes closed in self-centered pleasure. He paid no attention to the woman he used, and might just as well have been using a woman-shaped doll.

By the time he spasmed with release, I was back to being filled with almost nothing but fury. I was so humiliated by what he had done to me that I wanted to scream with the rage of it, and the fact that he hadn’t satisfied me only added to the rest of it. Those fools who were standing all around were still laughing, just as though they had the right to look down on me, but I knew better than that. They didn’t have the right, none of them did, and some how, some way, I would prove it.

“And so the sweet little hatchling has been given her first ride,” Jer-Mar said as he lifted himself off me, using one hand to see to his clothing before rising the rest of the way. “I never realized how stimulating public punishment could be, and regret now that I didn’t try it sooner. I’ll certainly have to try it again, though, and possibly even with the same mount. You may now apologize again, little thing, and thank me for having honored you in a way you didn’t really deserve.”

He stood there looking down at me with a superior sneer, accepting the chuckling and backslaps from his friends as nothing more than his due, watching as I turned to my right side on’ the carpeting and then sat up. He was probably hoping he’d hurt me, definitely expecting me to be devastated, but he hadn’t hurt me in the least, and all I felt was mad.

I apologize for having tried to fight you off, Jer-Mar,” I said, looking up to meet his eyes directly. “If I’d known you were going to go at it for so short an amount of time, I wouldn’t have bothered protesting. I really appreciate the way you honored me, but I do have a question: when does it get to be my turn to be satisfied?”

There were so many gasps and choking noises from the people all around, that it sounded like a windstorm rising in a forest. The blood drained out of Jer-Mar’s face and then it came back to make him look like he’d been slapped, a bright flush of crimson humiliation that went a good distance toward getting even for what he’d done to me. In my imagination I could feel the way the men in the room were now laughing at him, not aloud but still plain enough to sense, and again there came a feeling of pressure around my mind, as though something were trying to squeeze me to nothing.

The man who had tried to add to my shame stood with fists clenched, eyes bulging, and no expression for a very short time, and then he seemed to grow even angrier with frustration. His face twisted with savage fury, and he made a gesture of dismissal.

“Turned off is untouchable, but only in that way,” he said with a snarl, then shook off the hands of his friends who tried holding him where he stood. “I don’t care what the policy against really hurting them is, nobody talks to me like that. Nobody.”

With that he started toward me, his right hand still clenched into a fist, and it wasn’t hard figuring out what he intended doing with that fist. I got to my feet as quickly as I could, but made no attempt to back away from the oncoming attack. I’d known Jer-Mar was the sort who could be goaded into something that wasn’t supposed to be done, someone who could be pushed until he pushed back just a little too hard. No one in that place was willing to let me die, but if it happened before any of them could stop it . . .

It took only seconds for the man to reach me, wonderfully brief bits of time that I happily greeted the end of, his fist beginning to rise to the ready point while his eyes filled with vicious satisfaction. It was just about to happen and too late for any of the Secs to interfere; he was going to do it- But then his rush faltered as he looked past me, and stiffness replaced the readiness in him.

“That’s a good boy, Jer-Mar,” a deep voice said from behind me, a calm and easy voice filled with the faintest hint of amusement. “Trying to hurt one of the girls will get the boy’s ears pinned back hard, but not by the fools who run this place. And you have to admit she was telling the truth. That’s not the first time I’ve heard it suggested you’d still be the next thing to a virgin if the girls had anything to say about it. If you were smart, you’d look into the possibility of taking a few lessons.”

“From you?” Jer-Mar came back with all the scorn he was capable of, but there was still an almost-trembling inside him, a fear of sorts that limited him to the use of no more than words. “The story around here is that you’re having trouble cutting it, Kel-Ten. Everyone’s waiting for the time you’re defeated, so a real man can take over firsts. That time may not be too far ahead of us. ”

“That’s right, you are due to move up soon, aren’t you?” the deep voice said, and the amusement in it had increased. “I’ve been meaning to come by and tell you how much I’m looking forward to that. And the story you should have been hearing is that I’m bored with cutting it, but I doubt if you’re capable of understanding something that deep. You’re not smart enough to know there’s more to life than working up to a challenge, and in between dipping your brains out. Come to think of it, maybe that’s why you’re not smart enough.”

“So to cure your boredom, you come slumming,” Jer-Mar said, his eyes glittering with the wish that he could

go beyond that. “You stroll in and act the great protector, but what you’ve really accomplished is doing me a favor. They would have drawn and quartered me if I’d managed to hurt the pretty little thing, but now I’ve calmed down enough to step back and let them do it. She took their first efforts hard enough to start out this evening with a real attempt to apologize. I can’t wait to see what the next set does to her.”

The look on his face was pure vindictive glee, and closing my eyes in defeat didn’t stop me from knowing about it. I’d been so torn apart when my plans hadn’t worked out, that I hadn’t even turned to see who had ruined them. Now I was more than torn apart, more like close to stark terror, and the next words I heard began to freeze my blood.

“We humbly beg your pardon, Prime Jer-Mar,” the voice of the woman in yellow came, the tremble in it undoubtedly caused by anguish and anger both. “We returned her to you thinking she was now worthy of your attentions, but obviously we were wrong. The next time she’s brought back, there won’t be any possibility of our being wrong.”

That was the signal for the hard, uncaring hands to close on my arms again, hands that would drag me back to agony I couldn’t even bear to think about. Opening my eyes again was something I couldn’t bring myself to do, as though the nightmare would dissolve and drift away if I didn’t look at it, leaving me safe and unhurt. The hands closed tighter and began pushing and pulling me, refusing to dissolve the way they were supposed to, forcing me to take the first steps toward crushing horror. Part of me wanted to whimper and beg for forgiveness, to swear that I’d never do anything like that again, but the rest of me refused to let the words come out. Women were lucky in that they didn’t have to be strong at all times, I remembered from somewhere, but most of me dismissed the thought as unacceptable. Some women couldn’t let themselves be anything but strong, especially if they were alone-without someone really strong beside them whose strength they could share

“Where do you think you’re taking her?” that deep, calm voice came again with no warning, a big hand suddenly on my shoulder in company with the words. “Were you given permission to take her?”

“But—but-Prime Kel-Ten, you don’t seem to understand,” the woman in yellow began to stutter, choking up in horror over having to disagree with one of her gods. “The girl was obscenely, unbelievably insulting to a Prime, a man who’s one of your own! She has to be punished for that, she simply has to be, it would be unthinkable to allow anything else! I do hope you’re not upset over my having spoken to you like that, but . . . ”

“But you’re missing the point,” the deep voice interrupted, surprisingly sounding gentle rather than annoyed. “Prime Jer-Mar hasn’t yet reached the point where he’s one of mine, and even if he does eventually get there that doesn’t change the fact that I want the girl. I was about to take her with me when you and your Sees interrupted, but I’m prepared to forgive you for not knowing that. If you like, I’ll punish her for you, but I’m still taking her with me.”

“You have no right taking that girl!” Jer-Mar snarled with frustrated fury, while confusion forced my eyes open to see how close he was to throwing a fit. “She belongs here with the rest of the no and low percentage fluff, not . . . ”

“Wrong again, big man,” the deep voice said, all gentleness having disappeared from it. “I can take any girl I care to, from highest to lowest, and no one will do anything but smile and nod. It’s one of the privileges you get when you reach the level I’m at-something I really do hope you manage. Until and unless that happens, I can’t do any challenging of my own. Tell your Secs to let the girl go, woman. They’re not Class Zeroes, and I don’t want to have to hurt them.”

“Of course you don’t, Prime Kel-Ten, of course you don’t,” the woman in yellow said hurriedly with worry, while Jer-Mar paled and stepped back to fall silent. “See, they’ve already let her go, so she’s yours to take. You will punish her while you have her, you did say you would, didn’t you? No permanent physical damage, of course, but that leaves quite a lot . . .”

The woman’s voice faded away into the distance as the hand on my shoulder directed me out of the dining room through the doors the men had used to enter, the man belonging to the hand still nothing but a disembodied presence behind me. The Sees had turned me loose so fast the woman in yellow hadn’t had a chance to give them the order, and the fact that they had actually looked frightened added to my confusion. I was so relieved I wouldn’t be going with them that I wanted to tremble, but unbelievably I was also beginning to feel angry again. I’d been claimed by one of those-men, one of those so-called Primes, and my emotions were running in so many different directions I didn’t know how to feel.

“Don’t harm yourself rushing to thank me for getting you out of that,” the deep voice said once we were through the doors and out into a wide, lobbylike area, one that seemed at that moment deserted. “You have very little to be grateful for, after all, so why be fanatic about it? Or are you still so frightened that you’re not capable of anything more than putting one foot in front of the other?”

The last part of his commenting was an afterthought that took the dryness out of his tone, but all it did for me was add burnables to that inner fire that was giving me so much trouble. Everyone in that place was made of solid arrogance, and I’d long since had more of it than anyone might be expected to want.

“So you’re waiting for me to thank you for appropriating me,” I said, trying to pull loose from that hand still on my shoulder. “As soon as I’m able to recall asking you for the honor, I’ll be sure to show my gratitude as fully as I can. If by some chance you’re also waiting for me to beg you not to send me back, I think I ought to mention that you’re wasting your time. I fully expect to end up back with those sadists eventually, so I’ve decided not to waste good begging. And now that I’ve insulted you as well, we can just turn around and . . .”

“If you don’t mind, I’m the one who :s supposed to be giving the orders around here,” he said, his big hand refusing to turn me loose. “If I decide I’m getting tired of it, then you can take over, but until then it stays my privilege alone. That, of course, includes deciding when and if I’ve been insulted. And you really should understand I can’t take you back yet. We have to work on getting you to remember when you asked me to help you, so you’ll have the opportunity to be fully grateful.”

He sounded so very amused that my core of anger grew furious, just as though it were a separate, living person inside me. The rest of me was also more than mildly annoyed, and both together gave me a good enough reason to begin struggling to free myself from his grip. I swung wildly with my arms and managed to hit the arm of the hand holding me, and very briefly I was rewarded with being entirely free. I used the opportunity to start to run, to what destination I had no idea, but being free and alone was a good enough intention to begin with. I must have taken three or four steps before a hand closed on my arm, and then I was pulled back to a broader chest than I’d been picturing.

“You’re trying to leave already?” he asked, looking down at me with laughter in his eyes as his arms held me to him. “Without first showing me how grateful you can be? People have always told me how beautiful and desirable I am. Are you trying to say they were lying?”

At that exact moment I wasn’t trying to say anything, most especially because I couldn’t seem to find the words. Seeing his face had been something of a shock, but I couldn’t understand why. Rather than being boyish-featured he had a broad, manly face, one that was really quite handsome. It made me feel very odd to look at him, almost fluttery inside and the next thing to shy, but I didn’t understand why that should be. After all, it wasn’t as though Iii never seen a handsome, blond, blue-eyed man before.