She knelt, looking up at him.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Do not tell anyone, please,” she said, looking up at him, “-how-how I acted.”
“How you acted?” he asked.
“What I said-what I did!” she whispered.
“On my honor as a gentleman?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said, fervently, “on your honor as a gentleman!”
“I am afraid,” he smiled, “that I cannot comply.”
“I do not understand,” she said.
“Surely you must understand that a full report, a complete report, exact and detailed, must be made to Herjellsen and William?” he asked.
“Report?” she whispered. “No! No!”
Brenda Hamilton, aghast, kneeling, sank helplessly back on her heels. She knew she had exposed herself as a woman with sexual needs, publicly, incontrovertibly, as a woman with desperate sexual needs, exposed clearly, publicly, unrepudiably. She did not doubt that Gunther’s report would be objective, complete, accurate. She put her head in her hands, weeping.
You are coming around beautifully, Brenda,” said Gunther. “In my opinion you are, even of this instant, quite ready.”
She lowered her hands, lifting her tear-stained face to him. “Ready?” she said, numbly.
“Yes,” said Gunther, “quite ready.”
“I do not understand,” she said.
“Go to the cot,” he said. “Stand beside it.”
She did so.
I do not understand,” she said.
“Sit on the cot,” he said. She did so. “Sit prettily,” he said. “Put your knees together. Put your ankles together, and to one side. Turn your body to face me.” She did so.
“What did you mean `ready’, Gunther?” she asked. “I do not understand.”
“You are stupid,” he said. He regarded her sternly.
She put her eyes down. “Yes, Gunther,” she said.
He smiled, and turned away.
“Let me have the cosmetics,” she begged, suddenly, looking up. “Let me keep them here.”
They were tiny articles. She had little else to cling to.
Gunther turned to face her. He regarded her evenly. “You will not need them,” he said. “They have served their purpose.”
“Please, Gunther,” she begged.
“When you are transmitted,” said Gunther, “surely you must understand that you will be transmitted raw.”
“Transmitted!” she cried.
“Certainly,” said Gunther. “You are essential to the third series of experiments.”
“Oh, no!” she wept. She slipped from the cot, and fell to her knees on the floor. “No!”
Gunther laughed.
Wildly, desperately, Brenda Hamilton looked about, like a caught animal, terrified.
“No!” she cried, as Gunther snapped one of his handcuffs on her left wrist, and, pulling her, threw her half back over the cot.
“You will try to escape,” he told her.
He then snapped the other cuff about the curved iron bar at the head of the cot, securing her to it.
“This will discourage you,” he said.
Brenda Hamilton leaped to her feet, pulling at the cuff, jerking the iron cot. She was perfectly secured to it. Bent over, her hand at the curved iron bar, cuffed to it, she watched Gunther leave.
“There is no escape,” said Gunther, closing the door behind him.
She heard the locking of the door.
With the frenzy of a caught she-animal she jerked at the cuff. She was held perfectly. Moaning she threw herself on the cot her left wrist on the mattress, just below the bar. She heard the cuff slide on the iron. She jerked at it. And then she lay still, weeping.
There was no escape for Brenda Hamilton.
5
“Where is the fork?” asked the black.
Brenda Hamilton, no longer handcuffed, kneeling across the room from him, away from the door, looked at him blankly. “There was only the spoon,” she said. She was never given a knife. The black looked at the tray on the cot, the tin mug, the crumbs, the spoon.
He had not been the one who had brought the tray.
He regarded her, suspiciously. She saw the pistol, strapped in the holster at his side.
He walked toward her, across the wooden floor. She did not raise her eyes.
Suddenly she felt his hand in her hair, and she felt herself half lifted, twisted, forced to look at him. “Please!” she wept.
“Where is the fork?” he asked. She could not meet his eyes.
“There was only a spoon!” she wept. “Stop! You’re hurting me!”
He pulled her to her feet, bent over, she crying out and with two strides, she running, to ease the pain on her head, dashed her, jerking her head to one side at the last moment, against the wall. His hand had not left her hair. She slumped against the wall, weeping. Then she cried out as he jerked her again to her feet and, with quick strides, ran her against the other wall, again jerking her head back at the last instant. She struck the wall with force, her head jerked sideways, twisted. The top of her head screamed with pain. She reached up to his hand, her small fingers at his wrist. She could not dislodge his hand. He twisted her hair again and she quickly drew back her hands, submitting to the lesser pain, acknowledging to him his control.
“Where is the fork?” he asked.
“There was only a spoon,” she wept. “Please! Please! Ask the boy who brought it!”
“Boy?” he asked.
“The man!” she cried. “Ask the man who brought it!”
He pulled her to her feet, and, she weeping, ran her against the far wall and then back again, each time forcing her to strike the wall with great force, jerking back her head. Never did his hand leave her hair. Then, angrily, he threw her to the floor, releasing her. She lay on her stomach, her hands covering as best she could her head and hair, weeping. She sensed his boots on either side of her body.
“Where is the fork?” he asked.
“The man didn’t bring one!” she wept. “Ask him! Please ask him!”
He stepped over her body. She heard him leave the room. Her thin cotton dress was soaked with sweat. Her body ached. She sensed it would be bruised. Her head, her scalp, still shrieked with pain.
But she lay on the floor, and smiled.
She had gained time. The black might not ask the other about the fork. The other might not remember. And for the whites, William, Gunther, Herjellsen, it would be only their word against hers.
With the fork, splinter by splinter, working within the closet, cutting through to the outside, she might escape!
The closet was never opened. She would put the tiny pile of debris within it and then, after dark, try to open the stucco, slip through, and get to the fence. It would not take long to dig under it, the ground was soft and dry. And then she could run and run, and run, and come, with luck, sooner or later, to a bush road, a strip road, or a graveled road, and be picked up, and carried to safety.
In the daylight, in a few hours, she might, without water, without shelter, collapse in the heat, perhaps die, but in the night, in the comparative coolness, she might be able to make several miles.
It might be enough. It must be enough!
She thought of the leopard, and was frightened, and of snakes.
But there were things she feared more then leopards, or snakes, or the blacks. She feared Gunther, and Herjellsen, and the experimental shack.
She must escape!
With the fork she had the chance!
She smiled.
She heard someone on the porch, three people. Quickly she looked up, startled.
Her eyes furtively darted to where she had hidden the fork.
She knew her story. She would stick to it.
She heard the padlocks being opened, removed from the staples, heard the locks falling on their chains against the wood of the door.