“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.