“You could at least let me heal, you beast,” she said to him. “What do you care for my pleasure?” she demanded.
But he had turned away from her now, and, picking up his pouch, and his spear, disappeared among the trees.
“Don’t leave me!” she cried. “Please don’t leave me!”
And as she lay there, tied, she realized that he did not care for her pleasure. It was of no interest to him. And that, if he wished, he would leave her, lying behind him bound, helpless, alone in the forest.
With horror she suddenly understood that she had met a man to whom she was nothing, a man who cared nothing for her will, her desires, her feelings. Her delicacy, her sensibility, were not of interest to him. She knew she could expect nothing from him. From her, she knew, he would expect everything. She lay back, knowing that she was the helpless property of such a brute, and moaned.
When he returned to her the moon was full.
She struggled to sit upright, but could not do so. She rose on her elbows, knees bent, and looked at him.
He carried a fruit, a yellowish, tart applelike fruit, which he held for her. Gratefully she fed on the fruit. When she had eaten around the core he threw the core away. He then gave her a piece of dried meat from his pouch. It was tough and dry, and gamy, but she chewed it, and, with pleasure, swallowed it.
“Thank you,” she said.
He then bent toward her, to put his mouth to hers. She shrank back in the thongs. She tried to turn her head to one side, but he held her mouth to his.
Then she understood, suddenly, that he held water in his mouth, that he was bringing her drink.
Lifting her head she took the water from his mouth.
She lay back.
“Thank you,” she said.
Tree looked down at her, lying bound in the moonlight.
She looked up at him. It had pleased her to take water from his mouth. She had touched her teeth to his, and they had seemed hard and strong.
Tree wondered about this woman. She did not kick well. She seemed a cold fish.
“You will learn to kick well,” he said to her, “if you would eat.”
Brenda Hamilton looked at him blankly.
He looked at her intently. He put his hand gently on her left breast. She was very beautiful, this woman. She was more beautiful than the other women in the camp, except perhaps Flower. It was too bad she did not kick well. She would be used to do much work. Perhaps she could be tied at night with Ugly Girl.
He looked down at her.
“You will learn to kick well,” he said to Brenda Hamilton. “You will learn to kick well, if you would eat.”
15
They were near the village now. She could smell the smoke. She was frightened.
She pulled back on the tether, shaking her head, wildly. “No, please!” she said.
The leather, one end knotted about her neck, the other end in Tree’s fist, was taut between them.
“No, please,” she said.
Tree jerked the rope toward him and Brenda Hamilton stumbled forward, half strangling, and fell on her left shoulder at his feet, her wrists, tied behind her, unable to break her fall. He jerked her to her knees by the leash, at his thigh. She looked up at him, tears in her eyes. “Please do not take me to them,” she begged.
He jerked her to her feet and she stood again, his rope on her neck, facing him.
Then he turned and walked toward the village.
She felt the tug of the leash, and followed.
This morning, she had slept, fitfully, twisted on her side, still bound as she had been the night before, and then, at dawn, when the dew was still dark on the leaves, and there was only a half light, he had slapped her awake, and her brief dream of clean sheets, and her bedroom in her former apartment in California, vanished, and she found herself, face stinging, startled, cold, lying in wet grass, bound in the thongs of a primeval master.
He fed her as he had the night before, and then, when the warmth of the food was in her body, he used her briefly, she weakly trying to resist, knowing its futility, and then unbound her ankles from the roots, freeing his rope. She felt the rope then tied about her throat. He then released her hands from the root and the rawhide thong which, during the night, had so perfectly imprisoned her wrists. She was then led quickly to the stream, and thrust into the water, to wash herself. She shuddered, but cleaned herself. She then felt, again, her hands tied behind her back. He led her again to where he had left his pouch and spear. Gathering these, he had turned and, she following on the tether, had disappeared into the trees.
They had not walked more than half an hour before she had smelled the smoke. She knew his people were near.
She had pulled back on the tether, shaking her head wildly. “Please no!” she had begged.
She had then been briefly disciplined by the leash, taught its power to control her.
Then she had stood again, facing him, and he had turned and walked toward the village. She, terrified, miserable, obedient now to the leather collar of her leash, followed him. She had no choice.
Four times during the night had Tree used her body, once awakening her to his long, pounding thrusts.
The fourth time, in spite of her stiffness, her soreness, to her astonishment, and fear, she had sensed the beginning of a strange sensation in her body; she did not know whether it was painful or pleasurable; it was very different from anything she had felt before; she was terrified of the sensation, rudimentary and inchoate, incipient, because she sensed that she might be swept helplessly away from herself before it, that it might, if unchecked, transform her from a human person with dignity, though abused, into a degraded, uncontrollable, spasmodically responding female animal. “I must never let them take me from myself,” she told herself. “I must always retain my control. I must always keep my dignity. I must always remain an intelligent, self-restrained, dignified human being, a true human person.” But she had feared that if the sensation had not been checked, she would have, had his touch continued, been literally forced to succumb to it, that it would have reached a point where she could not have helped herself, that it would have been entirely in his hands. She had sensed then that, had he wished to do so, he could have made her an animal, that animal she feared most to be, a beautiful, helpless, responding female beast, the uncontrollable, yielding prize of a greater, a stronger beast. She had closed her eyes, and turned her head to one side, and gritted her teeth, and fought the sensation, trying to keep her body inert, trying, desperately, not to feel. Then, when she sensed that she would lose the battle, and she wanted to cry out, “Don’t stop! Please don’t stop!” he had finished with her, and had withdrawn, to roll to one side, to sleep.
“I hate you,” she whispered. “I hate you. I hate you!”
Then she had resolved to resist more mightily than ever, to yield never to such a beast, or to others like him. “I will never permit them to rob me of my dignity,” she told herself. But she was afraid, for she recalled the beginning of the strange sensation. It kept recurring to her, even as she followed him on her tether, and it made her belly and inwardness grow warm, and excited. Once he stopped and turned and regarded her. She stopped, and looked down, blushing. She had seen his eyes, and the slight flaring of his nostrils. She knew in the heart of her that this strange man, whose very life in this fierce time might depend on the sharpness of his senses, had literally smelled her desire, the secretions that acknowledged her body’s receptivity, its readiness. He had walked toward her. “No,” she had said, turning away. “Go away. Go away!” She felt his hand on her, and she shuddered. “Go away!” she cried.