She laughed with pleasure.
She lifted one leg, and then the other. They were long, slender, shapely, lovely. She had her eyes closed. She moved them slowly, exulting in the luxury of the movement. She lay then on her back, and opened her eyes. She stretched her left leg, and bent the right, knee lifted, heel on the mattress.
Gunther was watching her.
“It feels so good to move,” she said. She smiled at Gunther.
He looked at her, angrily.
“You do find me attractive, don’t you, Gunther?” she asked. She was smiling.
“Whore,” said Gunther.
“Yes,” laughed Brenda Hamilton, looking at him, “Doctor Brenda Hamilton is a whore.”
Gunther regarded her, puzzled.
“I’m your whore,” she said.
“I do not understand,” he said.
“Every woman,” said Brenda Hamilton, “if she is vital, for some man or other, would be his willing, eager whore.”
Gunther looked at her.
“I’m yours,” she said. She laughed.
“Whore!” he snapped.
“Only to you,” she laughed. “Not to William, or Herjellsen, or the blacks.”
He looked at her, not speaking.
“Sit beside me, Gunther,” she said. “Please.”
He did so. He sat on the edge of the cot, looking down on her, his left hand across her body, resting on the left side of the cot.
“I’m in your complete power, Gunther,” she said. She jerked at the handcuff, indicating that she was secured. She smiled. “You have absolute power over me,” she said. “Does that not excite you?”
He said nothing. His eyes were expressionless.
“You can make me do anything you want,” she said. “I will obey you, perfectly, completely.”
With his right hand, he touched her head, and then, holding her face, turned it from one side to the other, looking at it.
“Perfectly, completely,” she whispered.
He removed his hand from her face.
“Was the brown girl so marvelous?” she asked him.
“The slave?” asked Gunther.
“Yes,” said Brenda Hamilton, “-the slave!”
“Yes,” said Gunther.
“I can be better,” she said.
“Oh?” asked Gunther.
“Try me,” she said.
Gunther smiled.
“Have me stand before you,” said Hamilton, “as she did, not knowing what you will command. See which of us is better!”
He put his hand at the neckline of her thin, cotton dress. She felt his fist in its fabric.
“Strip me!” she begged.
He looked down on her.
“I’m in your complete power, Gunther,” she said. “You have absolute power over me! You can do with me what you want! Anything! Whatever you want! Does that not excite you?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Too,” she whispered, “it excites me! I have never been so excited in my life, Gunther!”
She tried to sit up on the cot and hold him with her right arm. With his left hand he forced her right wrist down, and pinned it to the mattress. The handcuff on her left wrist confined her hand at the bar. The steel slid on the iron. She could not rise. She was held. Gunther’s right hand was still at the neckline of her frock.
She looked up at him.
“Could I not be your slave, like that brown girl?” she asked.
He did not answer her.
“Caress me, Gunther,” she begged.
Gunther stood up, releasing her. “Others will caress you,” he said.
“Others?” asked Hamilton.
“Yes,” said Gunther.
“But what if I do not want others to caress me?” she asked.
“It does not matter,” said Gunther. He bent down and picked up the chain and the two padlocks from the floor at the foot of the cot, and went to the door.
Brenda Hamilton rolled to her stomach, and screamed and sobbed, thrusting her mouth against the mattress. She squirmed and struck at the mattress, kicking it with her feet, pounding it with her right fist. She bit at it, sobbing, and scratched at it with the fingernails of her right hand. She turned on – her side, and held out her hand to Gunther, who stood by the door.
“Gunther!” she wept.
“Tomorrow night,” said Gunther, “we will attempt to initiate the final test sequence of the second series of experiments. Herjellsen has told me that you will be permitted to watch.
Hamilton regarded him, red-eyed.
“You yourself, as you have been informed,” said Gunther, “will figure essentially in the third series of experiments.”
“Why will you not make love to me?” asked Hamilton.
“Herjellsen has decided,” said Gunther, “that you are to be transmitted as a virgin. He expects that it may enhance your value, if trading is pertinent.”
“Value?” breathed Hamilton.
“Too, Herjellsen supposes,” said Gunther, “that they might be less likely to slay a virgin. A virgin might be something of a prize.”
“Who are-they?” asked Hamilton.
“We do not really know,” said Gunther. “But we suspect that they will have some connection with the Herjellsen artifact.”
“No!” cried Brenda Hamilton. “No! No!”
“There is some danger, of course,” said Gunther, “in transmitting a virgin.”
Hamilton looked at him.
“The sacrifice of virgin females may be practiced.”
Hamilton regarded him with horror.
“But, in your case,” said Gunther, “this seems unlikely.
Lovely as you are you are in your twenties, and this, we conjecture will be sufficient to remove you from this danger. Furthermore, such sacrifice, commonly, involves tribal girls of high station in the group, such being regarded as the fittest gifts for the gods.” Gunther looked at Hamilton. “You, not so much a girl as a woman, a stranger, ignorant, one foreign to them, one with no standing, no status, we conjecture will stand in little danger of being regarded as a desirable sacrifice.”
Hamilton sat now on the edge of the cot. She was aghast. She trembled.
“Furthermore,” said Gunther, “we commonly associate the sacrifice of virgins with agricultural economies, where men are more dependent on factors outside of their control, the weather, for example, than with hunting economies, where the nature of acquiring food, and the efforts relevant to its acquisition, are more clearly understood. Perhaps more importantly in agricultural economies the population is larger and the social institutions and structures more complex. A larger population is doubtless more willing to expend certain of its members; further there is in a larger population, naturally, less personal contact among all members, and this makes the sacrificial expenditure of a given member of the group a much more impersonal matter; furthermore, in the agricultural economy, with its larger population, you have, doubtless, an extensive, complex cult tradition, perhaps with its professional witch doctors or priests, providing the population with an elaborate justification for ritualized homicide. Social developments of this complexity would be less likely to occur in a hunting group. Furthermore, in a hunting group, where life would be more precarious, it seems likely to suppose that it might also be regarded as more precious. Women would be needed to bear children and carry burdens. It is not likely that they would be used as the victims in ceremonial homicides.”
“Oh, Gunther,” wept Hamilton. “Help me to escape!”
“Hunting groups, we conjecture, too,” said Gunther, “would, if they are to survive, be dominated by strong men, large men, rugged men, intelligent men, energetic, cunning and swift, men of much stamina, of sound constitution and hardy appetites.”
Gunther looked at Hamilton, and she shuddered.
“Such men,” said Gunther, “are likely to relish and appreciate, robustly, the bodies of their women. They will have better uses to put the bodies of their women to than human sacrifice.”