“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.