“And to think I almost threw that shirt away when it was torn during a friendly little tussle in physical exercise class,” he said, so pleased with what he’d done that his grin had widened. “That just goes to show you never know when something will turn out handy rather than damaged. I think I have more of an appetite now than I did before, so let’s go get something to eat.”
“You can’t seriously expect me to walk around in this,” I said, caught unawares when he simply turned and headed out of the room. I had to hurry after him in an effort to catch up, which made me feel even more ridiculous. “This may well be worse than what they forced me to wear last night! Kel-Ten, listen to me!”
“But I am listening to you,” he answered, stopping in the doorway to turn and look at me. “What I’m not sure about is what I’m hearing. Did I hear you say you’d rather go naked?”
I slowed abruptly, more because of his stare than to keep from running into him. He was still having a lot of fun, but that doesn’t mean he was joking. I could feel my cheeks heating up badly at the thought of being dragged around that complex naked, and that was the answer he was looking for.
“I thought so,” he said with a pleasant nod, reaching to take my hand. “Let’s go and have breakfast.”
The bedroom had turned out to be the door to the left off the hall past the bathroom, which made the door in the end wall the only one we hadn’t used. Kel-Ten remedied that by opening it and pulling me through, into a kitchen that matched the rest of the apartment. This time there was a bright rose to relieve the monotony of the gold, an effort to make the room look cheerful and happy rather than cold and formal. I was taken to the golden table and pushed into a comfortable gold and rose chair, and then my hand was released.
“You go ahead while I decide what I want,” Kel-Ten said, indicating the oblong in the table where my fingers were meant to touch. “I’m in the mood for something different this morning, but I don’t yet know what.”
He had taken the chair right next to mine, and with a touch of his hand under the table had made a menu appear in the table top. It seemed to be a menu with quite a lot of listings, and I didn’t understand that.
“I thought all diets were carefully regulated,” I said, startled by the two or three entries I could read without craning my neck. Most chefs didn’t stock dishes requiring such complex preparation, and there was even one I’d heard about but had never managed to taste. “Or does that go only for dining room meals?”
“Location has nothing to do with it,” he answered, glancing at me with an amusement that should have warned me. “It’s you girls who have carefully regulated diets; we men can eat anything we please as long as we stay in decent physical shape. We’re not the ones who get pregnant, after all. A girl who stays the night in a Prime’s apartment is sometimes given a special tidbit if she’s been especially good, but even we aren’t allowed to ruin what the the dieticians decide on for you. Touch the plate, and my chef will deliver whatever it is you’re supposed to have.”
He went back to his perusal of the menu then, leaving me to sit silent but furious. I hated being watched and controlled so completely, hated having everything decided for me without my own wishes being consulted. My stomach had been letting me know about the meals I’d missed the day before, but the hunger pangs were a lot less than I would have expected them to be. It was just as though I hadn’t been eating so regularly lately that missing a few meals was something to take special notice of, but that was silly. I always ate regular meals, and I’d grown more slender than I was usually was because-because- Well, probably because I’d been on a diet or had been working especially hard. I ran a hand through my hair, frustrated over not being able to remember, but there was something I did remember. If you miss enough meals You’ll die of malnutrition no matter who doesn’t want it happening, no matter how hard they try to stop it. The realization made me feel a good deal better, and Kel-Ten couldn’t say- I hadn’t warned him. I’d said that if I could find a way to die I would take it, and it looked like I just might have done exactly that.
“Touching the plate won’t do me any good,” I said, trying to sound surly and resentful instead of filled with satisfaction. “I was told yesterday that I was being punished, and wouldn’t be allowed to eat until someone decided I could and I was specifically given permission. I haven’t been given that permission yet.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Kel-Ten said, looking up from the menu with a frown. “You’re already clearly underweight, and you’re starting to lose color. In all the years I’ve been here, I’ve never heard of them doing anything so—”
His words broke off as he looked at me, and I suddenly had the awful feeling he was remembering what I’d told him as clearly as I did. If I’d had any intelligence at all I would have kept quiet and not given any warning, but some part of me had insisted that wasn’t fair. I’d found it very necessary to be fair, but the next minute that fairness did me in.
“So you’re being punished,” Kel-Ten said, no longer in any way amused with me. “If that’s true, then touching the plate will prove it. If they don’t want you eating, they’ll have directed the chef not to give you anything. Let’s just see.”
I tried to keep him from taking my hand, but he had very little trouble ignoring my efforts. After forcing my fingers open he pressed them to the plate, then sat back to stare at me while I rubbed at my hand. He’d hurt me in his attempt to test his theory, but not so much that the pain became my greatest concern. I knew his chef would cause considerably more damage, and it wasn’t long before I was proven right. Much too quickly the delivery slot in the center of the table raised up, and an unreasonably large number of dishes were pushed out.
“What was that you said a minute ago?” Kel-Ten asked, moving angry eyes from the delivery to me. “You’re not being allowed food, or you’re not being allowed everything edible in the complex? From the looks of that meal, the dieticians are even more unhappy with your weight than I am. I don’t know what you thought you’d gain by lying to me, but I guarantee it’ll turn out to be nothing like what you were expecting. As soon as I have the time, you’re getting punished. Now take that food and start eating it.”
“And if I don’t?” I countered, his anger making mine flare in response-even if I did feel as though I were repeating myself like a faulty recording. “I’m not used to eating when I have no appetite, and every time I turn around in this place something happens to ruin what appetite I do have. If you and they want me to eat, you can all leave me alone. Maybe not being bothered for a while will make me hungry again.”
“If you don’t eat on your own, they’ll force-feed you,” he came back, his angry gaze sharp as he answered only my question and ignored the rest of what I’d said. “I saw it done a couple of times, and you won’t believe how unpleasant it is until you’re the one it happens to. They make everything as close to a liquid as they can, and then they use a tube to put it directly into your stomach. One of the girls I watched tried throwing up, and to teach her not to do it again they took what she’d brought up and made her swallow it without the tube. If you’d prefer doing it that way go right ahead, I don’t mind watching it again.”
Meaning there was no way he would lie for me and say I’d eaten when I hadn’t. I moved around in the chair he’d put me in, completely nauseated by the story he’d told, feeling his eyes on me even though I wasn’t looking at him. Considering the fact that a dead partner would be of very little use to him, his attitude wasn’t terribly surprising. He was going to keep me alive until we could escape, another unpleasant truth I was wasting my time trying to ignore. I hesitated no more than an additional moment, staring at the edge of the gold table in an effort to regain control of myself, then reached for the first of the dishes.