“Sure, laugh,” Megan replied. “I’ve got distillation to attend to.”
“Go for it,” Christel said, stripping off her clothes. “I’ve got better things to do. All this needs is a half a ton of whipped cream and five more males.”
Megan shook her head as Christel writhed into the group. She fully intended to just go back to her, lonely, workroom and keep distilling the various substances she had concocted. But the more she thought about it, the more she watched, just standing there as the pile writhed in a tangle of limbs like some giant fleshy amoeba.
But far more attractive.
“Oh the hell with perfume.” She sighed, aware that she had reached a point where she wasn’t about to go to her workroom. Although the bath had some interest. Finally, she took a deep, shuddering breath, stripped off her clothes and dove into the pile.
Christel was right; it needed whipped cream.
CHAPTER NINE
Paul looked slightly shamefaced when he woke up in a pile of female limbs. But the first thing he saw was Megan, leaning on one arm, watching him.
“Was it just my imagination, or did I see your face in the middle of… this,” he asked, gesturing at the girls, most of whom were still sleeping.
“It wasn’t your imagination,” Megan replied, shrugging.
He watched the way that moved her breasts and shook his head.
“I… didn’t figure you for this sort of thing,” he said, carefully.
“Neither did I,” Megan admitted. “But it was pretty fun once I got over the idea.”
“I have to get up,” Paul said, trying to figure out how to crawl out and disturb the least number of people.
“You are staying here at least one more day,” Megan said, sternly. “You looked like death-on-a-cracker when you came in and you still don’t look good.”
“I’ve got things I have to do,” Paul said. “Besides go to the bathroom.”
“It’s over there.” Megan gestured with her chin. “But you’d better come back out, too.”
“I will,” Paul said.
When he came back out he was wearing one of the standard robes and he sat down on a pillow, turning his head to the side as he contemplated Megan.
“What are you doing awake at…” he paused and obviously consulted the Net, “three a.m.?”
“I get enough sleep in the harem.” Megan shrugged. “I wasn’t tired. I was watching you.”
“Watching me sleep?” Paul asked. “Or watching over me?”
“A little of both. Watching and thinking.”
“How easy it would be to kill me?” Paul asked.
“Damage you, yes,” Megan said. “Kill would be for all practical purposes impossible. And if I even tried, well, the best that might happen is that I’d wind up like Amber. And, hell, I don’t want to kill you. I did at first, but I don’t want to anymore.”
“Do you know why?” he asked quietly.
“No,” Megan replied, sitting up. “Tell me, O Wise One.”
Paul smiled and said something softly.
“Have you ever heard of the Sabine women?” Paul asked.
Megan thought about it for a long time and then shook her head.
“I think my mother mentioned the term,” she said. “But I don’t recall anything about it.”
“Very old legend,” Paul said, taking a sip of wine. “The Romans were short on women so they invited a neighboring tribe, the Sabines, to a festival in honor of the gods. Under a binding truce of course. At the height of the party, the Roman young men took off with the Sabine’s wives and daughters while the older men held off the Sabines. Then they raped them and took them as their wives. Quite a few years later the Sabines had built up enough force to fight the Romans and, hopefully, destroy them. But the Sabine women convinced them not to kill their new husbands. After a while the Sabine tribe was absorbed by the Romans.”
Megan frowned. “It’s a legend.”
“A legend that has had a ring of truth to this day.” Paul sighed. “Because the psychological basis of it started to be understood in the twentieth century, starting with something called the Stockholm Effect. People tend to bond to their captors in personalized imprisonments. Most of the real-life examples have faded over the last few millennia but there are tens of thousands of them that have been studied. And the psycho-physiological effects, even the evolutionary bases, are easily traceable. Women who have been kidnapped and imprisoned tend to bond to their captors even more readily and to fall in love with them. Tend. Not always, humans are individuals. But it’s the majority.”
“I’ve fallen in love with my kidnapper,” she said, hanging her head.
“You’ve fallen in love with your kidnapper,” Paul confirmed. “It’s not nice, it’s not the way that things are ‘supposed’ to be. But it’s very real and it’s very human and it’s something that I counted upon when I set up this… group. It probably goes back to prehuman conditions. Young female chimpanzees that are thrown out of their packs are often found by males from other packs. When they are, they are forced back to the area that the females stay in and are brutalized until they stay there of their own free will. To the point of preventing new females from attempting to escape. I have not brutalized you girls, but do you think Christel, for example, would support any plans to escape?”
“No,” Megan said.
“I could postulate a race which is different,” he paused and chuckled grimly. “Actually, I don’t have to. The elves are different. Attempt to rape or imprison an elf and you’d better have lots of chains. And a gag.”
“You haven’t…” Megan said, her eyes wide.
“Never,” Paul replied, definitely. “But some have tried from time to time, especially in the years when they lived among humans; elves were always beautiful. But the elves have no submit in them. They do not change their… emotions under stress. Put them in an imprisonment situation and they will always try to escape. They will tend, very hard, to try to kill their guards, even if it means their own deaths. Humans, though, tend to make the best of a bad situation. Even to the point of falling in love.” He looked at her tenderly and smiled. “I take it you’re human?”
“Very,” she admitted.
“Amber, though, seemed to be part elf,” Paul sighed. “She never would submit to this necessity and when she plotted to kill Christel and escape I was forced to make her… more compliant.”
Megan shuddered and shook her head. “Paul, do me a favor. If I ever go insane and do something that makes you have to do that, just kill me, okay?”
“I truly hope it never comes to that. You can’t kill me, you know,” he added, looking at her. “And if you even managed it through some miracle, it would be worse than it is now. That is part of this effect; faced with unpalatable choices humans choose the lesser of the evils and live through them as best they can. But you don’t want to anymore, do you?”
She thought of all the nights that she had cried for her loss and the pain. And of all the times they had talked. She probably knew more about the inner workings of the New Destiny faction than anyone not a part of it. And she knew that she no longer wanted to kill him. It didn’t mean she wouldn’t, but she didn’t want to.
“No,” she answered honestly, dipping her head again and fighting not to cry.
“If it helps you at all, I love you, too,” Paul said. “You’re… very precious to me. Sometimes when I come here it is only to see you. I can’t talk to other people as I can with you. I certainly can’t to anyone outside this group and of all the ones in it, the only other one that had your clarity of mind and ability to listen and make useful comments was Amber. And in the end, I had to make her safe.”