I turned my head to him quickly, my mind immediately cringing and begging, and he winced as though I’d slapped him.
“Don’t do that,” he muttered, shaking his head hard to rid himself of the feelings he’d picked up from me. “Despite your very obvious opinions to the contrary, there are women in this Amalgamation who have been used by me without losing their lunches. If you exert superhuman control, you might even be able to number yourself among them.”
His blue eyes looked down at me soberly, showing nothing of the faint hurt he’d felt at my reaction. But they also showed nothing of the calm determination he was filled with. I suddenly felt terribly confused and unsure, but those emotions did nothing to alter my reluctance. I pulled futilely at the leather on my wrists, and thought that maybe if I spoke to Len
“No, don’t say anything,” Len interrupted, not the words but the thought. “I don’t care to allow you the right to speak to me. The only thing you ever talk about is why everything should be done your way. It’s about time you learned you can’t back up that attitude—at least not on this world. And it’s time you learned not to push people around.”
His hand came to stroke my arm then, but his mind also came to mine to let me know the pleasure he felt at the contact. I’d had no idea what it would be like to be used by a male empath, but I soon found out. He fed me every emotion he felt, sharply, intensely, making me feel it despite my struggles. I’d always been stronger than Len and I still was, but I could no more force him out of my mind than away from my body. In order to strike at him I had to open my mind wide, and as soon as I did he was immediately inside, flooding me with emotions that turned me weak and helpless. I whimpered at the touch of his hands to my body as his mind invaded mine, writhed and moaned as he demanded I do, wept and begged in a way that pleased him. He let me suffer a very long time before he took me, but when he did the feeling was indescribably satisfying, almost as good as the best times with Tammad. The fact that Len was forcing me to feel that way diminished some of the pleasure, but after he had left me I came to understand that he could have used the darker emotions to obtain his satisfaction if he’d wanted to. Both he and Garth had given me pleasure instead of fear, satisfaction instead of pain. On that world they could have done anything to me that they pleased, but it had pleased them to do nothing more than share some pleasure. I closed my eyes against the tears flowing out, feeling terribly ashamed, and not only for the way I’d treated them. The shame ran deeper than that, but the reason for it was lost in a welter of confusion.
“I believe the bedin’s use is now yours,” Kednin’s voice came, undoubtedly speaking to Tammad. “On your knees, bedin, and present yourself in a proper manner to my guest.”
I opened my eyes again at the command, and after a few minutes of struggle managed to kneel in front of Tammad. The barbarian had watched my struggle silently, his mind held by its usual, rigid calm, his broad face impassive. I finally raised my eyes to his, slowly and reluctantly, then immediately looked down at the silk again. That same sense of faint dissatisfaction was touching him, coupled with a sudden surge of hurt that made me cry inside. He was disappointed in me, and whether it was still or again made no real difference. I needed so desperately to be held in his arms, but who would want to hold a disappointment?
“A female is ever more beautiful for having been used,” Kednin said, his voice husky. “See how her body trembles even as she displays herself for your inspection. You may now speak, bedin, and see that your words please us.”
I raised my eyes again to look at Tammad, and it was just as though he alone sat in the tent. That same look was still in his eyes, and I had to do something to get rid of it.
“I beg you, hizah, allow me the honor of serving you fully,” I whispered, trembling even more. “A lowly bedin begs the favor of her hizah.”
I waited for those mighty arms to come and draw me close to him, but a flash of disgust came from his mind instead, short in duration but so strong it nearly knocked me over. I knelt frozen in shock, unable to understand what was happening even when Tammad turned his head to Kednin.
“I thank my host, but this bedin no longer interests me,” he said, his voice lazy but impassive. “Should it not inconvenience you, I would much prefer finding a quiet place where we may continue discussing the strangers.”
“As you wish,” Kednin agreed with a shrug as he rose to his feet. “If you will follow me, I will show you to such a place.”
Tammad rose, beckoning Len and Garth up with him, and the three of them followed Kednin through one of the silk hangings. I knelt where I’d been left on the silken floor, my head down, feeling so ashamed I was ready to curl up and die. Not only didn’t he want me, he felt disgusted by me, so disgusted he couldn’t bring himself to touch me. Maybe it was because I’d been used by so many men, and had not only been used but had been made to enjoy it. Maybe he didn’t know how terrible it was to be owned by those Hamarda, maybe he thought I enjoyed all of it. Under those circumstances I could understand why he no longer even pretended to want me; I just couldn’t live with the thought. All I’d ever wanted was to have his love and please him in everything, but now that was even more impossible than it had been. I bent lower over my knees, too defeated even to moan, and wished I were dead.
A minute later a fist was in my hair, drawing me to my feet and then stumblingly out through the hangings. I didn’t know what that strange hizah wanted of me, but couldn’t scrape together enough concern to care even when he took me out of the tent into the dark, silent night. I was pulled across the sand, shivering from the coolness of the night, until the bulk of a male bedin suddenly appeared in front of us. The hizah stopped, threw me to the sand at the bedin’s feet, then looked down at me coldly.
“It is the wish of the hizah Kednin that this miserable bedin be whipped,” be said, shocking me even further with the words. “She has failed to please the hizah’s guests, and will therefore forfeit her life. You are to whip her now, but only in punishment. The hizah wishes to be present at her death, but will not be free for some time.”
The bedin grunted his acknowledgment of the orders, dragged me from the sand by one arm, then started away toward the Y frame. The hizah was already retracing his steps toward the tent we had come from, his mind grimly pleased that his chore had been seen to. I struggled along beside the bedin, my arm blazing with pain from his grip, almost ready to scream out my fear of what awaited me. I wanted to scream—I needed desperately to scream—but there was no one on that world who wanted to hear me.
13
I hung slackly from the Y frame, so deeply into shock that I no longer felt the pain. My arms and wrists and shoulders were as numb as my back, but somehow I was aware of the blood trickling down toward the backs of my legs, blood drawn by the whip the bedin had wielded. How many strokes I’d had I didn’t think I’d ever know, but there had been enough to make me be sick all over myself, enough to make me draw my shield in tight to keep from projecting the agony. My body had sweated into the cool desert night even more than the bedin’s had.
Suddenly I shivered, and the soul-searing pain that flashed with the shiver seemed to somehow clear my mind. It wasn’t all over, it had barely begun, and I couldn’t make myself understand that it would be my life that was over. Slowly, straining in an effort that was almost too great to make, I forced the shield back to nothingness. The night flared into new being with the minds that inhabited it, animal minds, human minds—and any combination of the two. I was even more aware of my own labored breathing and the way it forced an echo from my body’s reawakened pain.