Mind Games

Chapter 10:  Strange New Life

       "Two hours.  I know it happened.  Two hours."  Mariah was muttering to herself. 

       From the edge of sleep she heard a girl's voice, soft and young, asking, “Is she feverish again?"

       Gentle fingers moved hair off of her face, and a gentle hand pressed into her forehead.  "No," said the voice of the strange master.  "Not feverish.  Dreaming." 

       Mariah sprang to consciousness.  Although she kept her eyes closed, feigning sleep, her every pore strained to understand this mindgame. 

       The master stroked Mariah's hair, in a manner Mariah felt was soft and strangely comforting.  Through her closed eyes she could sense the master staring at her face. Then he dragged the fingertips of one hand slowly down the side of her head to the left side of her neck, then her left shoulder, and down her arm until her reached her hand.  He gently massaged her fingertips and let go.  Mariah wondered that rather than becoming aroused by this touch, she felt the tension of her dream memory draining out of her body.  Her eyes wanted to open, but she fought them.

       She heard the master stand up and say softly, "She is awake."  There was a silence as he waited to see if she would open her eyes.  When she did not, he said, heavily, "Rose, I'll leave her to you."  His footsteps slowly led to the door, which he shut behind him.

       Mariah continued to keep her eyes shut.  She knew very well that as the mindgame played out she would be unable to resist it, but for now she would keep whatever advantage she had.

       For a moment there was silence in the room.  A finger touched the back of her hand, tentatively, and the girl's voice said, softly, scared, "Will you talk to me?"

       Mariah did not move or open her eyes.  The girl took Mariah's hand in hers and led it to her breast, which was naked.

       "You see," the girl said softly, "I am just a cunt.  They asked me to talk to you so you won't be afraid." 

       Mariah considered.  This girl was part of the mindgame, but it was possible she did not know it.  She sounded young.  It would not be fair for her to be punished because of Mariah's own stubbornness.  In any case, the mindgame would be played out sooner or later. 

       Mariah opened her eyes.  The girl could not be overly long out of the factory.  She had light brown hair set behind her ears. Her eyes were hazel with specks of yellow in them.  Her face was fair and she had a smattering of freckles across her nose.  Her body had some meat on it.  Although she bore typical marks and scars all over her body, none of them were new.  There was something calming about the girl, Mariah thought, like being alone in a room.

       The girl gave a tiny, uncertain smile.  "My name is Rose," she said in a voice scarcely above a whisper.

       Mariah did not reply.  The cunt already knew her name.  She merely looked at her, her face blank and expressionless, giving nothing away. Rose said, "They told me to feed you if you will eat.  Will you?"  She looked so pleading that Mariah felt ashamed.  She nodded her head.  The girl had been commanded to feed her and, after all, food was life.

       Rose smiled again, tentatively.  "I'll be right back," she said quickly, as if afraid Mariah would change her mind.  She almost ran out of the room. 

       When she left Mariah furtively checked out her limbs for usefulness, wiggling her toes and ankles, bending and straightening her knees, compacting her abdomen.  She ached all over but it was a dull pain, as if she were feeling it through a dream.  She bent her left arm and it was fine.  Her right elbow, though, again sent shot burning pain like lightning throughout her entire arm when she attempted to move it.  She gasped  and sank back into her pillow, holding herself still until Rose returned with a bowl of gruel.

       Finding a tray that Mariah had not seen attached to the side of the bed, Rose placed it over Mariah’s legs and put the bowl on it.  Timidly she said, "You are weak.  They told me to spoon feed you, if you will let me."  Mariah nodded and obediently opened her mouth as Rose lifted the spoon to it.

       It was the most delicious food Mariah had ever tasted, better even than the samples she was given in her housecunt class eons ago.  Panic.  "This is not gruel," she gasped, and with her good arm she swept the bowl off the tray, the liquid flying onto the bed, onto Rose, everywhere.  The bowl crashed to the floor and splintered into pieces.  Rose half whimpered, half screamed.

       The door flew open and a bearded master Mariah had not seen before strode into the room, taking in everything with his glance.  Rose immediately fell to her hands and knees before him, prostrating herself, crying.  The strange master, the breeze-voiced one, rushed in behind him, looking about in confusion and dismay.  "What happened?" he asked of all three.

       Mariah looked him straight in the eye but did not speak.  She had acted out of panic and instinct, and she would suffer for it, she knew.  Whatever punishment they gave her, however, would be better than this mindgame.  She would await their judgment.  Insolently she forced herself to continue meeting the master's eye.

       From the floor Rose lifted her head only slightly.  "Please, Master," she said in a rush, her body quivering.  "I didn't warn her it wouldn't be gruel.  She was...she was just scared."  She pressed her head back down onto the floor, kissing it, quivering.

       The bearded master took a step towards her, but Mariah noticed with some surprise that his hand did not go towards his whip.  He stopped short.  "Rose, you're bleeding," he said.  "You're hurt."  Rose did not raise her head.  The master sank beside her and examined her, and Mariah saw that blood was flowing from her forearm.  She must have been cut by a flying shard.  The two masters exchanged a glance, brief, intense.  Wordlessly the second master, the one with the breeze voice, bent and picked up Rose as if she were weightless, paying no heed to the blood that stained his tunic. 

       "Wait," Mariah called, compelled by her conscience as he carried Rose out the door.  He stopped and looked back.  "It's not her fault,"  Mariah said.  "It's only mine.  She did just as you told her.  Punish me, not her." The effort of speaking exhausted her and she coughed weakly.

       The master looked at her steadily, and then said in a patient, tired voice, "She is bleeding.  I am attending to her cut."  As he stood for another moment, Mariah noticed that Rose was relaxed in his arms, as if not afraid.  The master turned and left. 

       The bearded master remained in the room.  He said softly, as if to himself, "You'll make things complicated, that's certain." Then, briskly, he began to pick up the broken pieces of the bowl.  "If you don't want to eat, then you can drink," he said, and he held the glass to Mariah's lips and tilted it, forcing the liquid into her mouth.  As he did so, he said evenly, "Here are some things you need to know. My name is Animal, and Rose belongs to me.  I won't have you mistreating her.  You belong to Gabriel," and he indicated with a toss of his head the master who had carried out Rose.  "My assignment from the Bearer is to take care of Gabriel, and he, for some strange reason, has decided to take care of you."  Master Animal kept talking but his voice was replaced by a ringing in Mariah's ears.  She felt like she was floating on the bed, and she knew no more for a time.

*****

       One chill night a couple weeks after Rolanda has been tortured in front of them, the master gave the cohort permission to light a fire.  Most of the group gathered around it, warming their bare skin.  Mariah lay on her back outside the circle of light, mesmerized by the bright stars against the velvety sky.  With a general warning to be good or get a beating, the master withdrew to his cabin. 

       Mariah must have dozed off.  She awoke to the excited whisperings of several of the cohort gathered close to the fire, and a high-pitched squealing.  She rubbed her eyes and approached the group.  Samson held some wiggling thing over the fire.  It was a rabbit.

       "Stop it!" Mariah hissed, horrified. 

       Samson looked at her coolly.  "It's my rabbit," he said.  "I snared it."  The rabbit was wriggling frantically as Samson lowered its feet towards the flames.

       "Let it go!" Mariah ordered.

       "Shut up, Mariah," said Sefka, one of the older boys.  Although younger than Mariah, he was bigger than her, as were several of the other boys his age.  "You might be oldest, but you're not a mistress."

       Enraged, Mariah grabbed for Samson's arms.  Sefka stopped her, shoving her back.  Mariah fell, landing on her rear.  Samson giggled, continuing to hold the rabbit over the flame.  When Mariah stood again, several members of the cohort had joined Sefka in blocking her way to Samson, standing firmly against her. For a moment Mariah felt afraid.  Then she heard the rabbit squeal again.  She charged, aiming to go between two of the girls.  She broke through but the group tackled her, throwing her back down on the ground.  Sefka was on top of her.  "You'll be next in the fire, Mariah," he said in her ear.  "No one's for you."

       Mariah grabbed Sefka’s hair and yanked with all her might, pulling his head to the side.  He howled with pain.  Mariah took advantage of his lost balance, rolling over and making him fall off of her.  With a twist she was on her feet, through the crowd, and next to Samson.  She grabbed the rabbit from him, saw with a glance how badly burned it was, and broke its neck.  She threw the carcass into the fire.  Samson started to yell, and Mariah slapped him on the cheek, hard.  "I am the oldest," she said, looking at each of the children one by one.  She held Sefka’s eye as she said,  "When I tell you to do something, you will listen to me."  Sefka glared at her defiantly but then nodded and looked away.

*****

       Mariah woke with a start.  A hand was on her breast. 

       "I'm sorry," Master Gabriel said, slowly pulling his hand back.  "I didn't mean to wake you."  Mariah remembered his face when they met on the path, outside the gate, how broad and sunny it had looked.  Now it was drawn and shadowed. On the path where she had trusted him, Mariah reminded herself.  Defiantly she refused to speak, but the master didn't seem to notice.  "I'm going to touch you," he said, "But I'm not going to hurt you."  Slowly he moved his hand again to just below her left breast, and lay it flat there.  Mariah's heart pounded.  Her body was so tortured that she was sure even gentle sex would kill her.

       Gabriel drew his hand away.  "Below your chest is your ribcage," he said conversationally.  "And inside your rib cage are your lungs, which is what you breathe with.  I think you have a cracked rib.  I want to see if you can breathe okay.  So I'm going to put my hand back on your rib cage, and I want you to take a deep breath."  He held Mariah's eye.  "All right?"

       His voice was kind and urged her to trust him.  The same voice as on the path.  The voice that had promised freedom and had betrayed her.

       "I hate you, master," Mariah said. 

       Gabriel flinched as if he had been whipped.  He looked away from Mariah, and Mariah felt that she had won a victory.  But he looked back at her almost immediately.  "It takes a lot of energy to hate," he said.  "And it takes a lot of energy to heal.  You get better.  Then you can hate me all you want."

       Mariah knew he was playing a mindgame with her.  He would heal her so the torture could begin again.

       Gathering all her energy, Mariah spat on the master.  Or she tried to.  The spit got no farther than her chin, where it dribbled down.  Gabriel, expressionless, took out a pocket handkerchief to wipe her off.  She jerked her chin away from his hand, but the sudden movement caused a sharp pain in her neck and shoulder.  She cried out.  "I hate you," she said again, more weakly than before.

       Gabriel said, "If you don't let me wipe the spittle off your chin, pretty soon it will start to itch."

       Mariah said nothing, but as soon as the words were out of Gabriel's mouth her chin started itching, almost burning.  She glared at him.  Manfully not smiling, Gabriel let her suffer for a few seconds before he wiped her off.

       "I want to feel your ribcage," he said again.  "All right?"

       Mariah glared at him but nodded.

       Gabriel again put his hand below her left breast, flat on the skin.  "Breathe slowly, as deep as you can," he said.  Defiantly Mariah refused to obey, glaring.  Gabriel said nothing, sitting still as a statue.  Mariah resolved to outwait him.  She closed her eyes, pretending to sleep. 

      Minutes passed.  Mariah heard a soft sound from Gabriel.  Opening her eyes, she saw that, without moving, he had fallen asleep, and was snoring softly.  As she watched, in slow motion he slid from the edge of the bed where he was sitting down to the floor, his hand trailing down her side as he slid.  At last he came to a rest leaning against the bed. 

       Mariah watched him warily.  Was this part of his strange game?  Was she supposed to react in a certain way?  As the bad cunt, should she do the opposite of what he wanted?  Her arm ached, and her chest, and she had trouble thinking straight. 

      She started at the sound of a quiet chuckle from the open door.  It was Master Animal, leaning on the door frame, watching the whole scene, his eyes glinting with amusement.  When he looked to  Gabriel sleeping on the floor his expression softened. Silently he crossed the room to Mariah's bed and sat in the empty chair.  He leaned forward so he could speak softly to Mariah. "For a week he's hardly slept, watching over you." 

       "Why?" Mariah asked, mystified that any mindgame could matter so much to a master.

       Animal shrugged, his sardonic expression returning.  "I guess he just likes your looks," he said.

       Mariah said weakly, "I'm just a torture cunt. I'm nothing to look at."  Animal snorted again and Mariah understood that he had been joking.  She remembered how Rolanda had looked in the field; caked with blood and excrement and covered with bruises.  Someone had cleaned Mariah up, she knew, but she probably looked even more frightful than she felt.  Suddenly embarrassed, without thinking she lifted her hands to put her hair behind her ears.  Pain shot from her right elbow to her neck and to her fingertips.  She groaned. 

       "Is it your chest?" Animal asked, something akin to sympathy in his voice.

       Mariah shook her head, and this effort made her arm throb even more.  "My arm," she said, and she closed her lips against the moan that was coming.

       Animal picked up the medicine bottle and spoon she had seen earlier on the bureau.  Carefully he unstopped the lid, saying as he did so, "This will just put you to sleep.  When you wake up, if you can manage to behave for long enough, Gabriel will try to fix up your arm." 

       Animal  held the spoon to her lips but Mariah defiantly refused to open her mouth. Animal frowned.  "Open," he said.

       Mariah sucked her lips between her teeth and shook her head. Animal lowered the spoon and reached for his whip without thinking.  "You can beat me all you want," Mariah said.  "I won't play your mindgame." 

       Animal's eyebrows came together in surprise and consternation.  "You think this is a mindgame?" he asked incredulously. 

       "I'm not stupid, Master," Mariah said.

       Animal appraised her.  "Maybe you're not," he said.  He looked at Gabriel, sleeping on the floor.  "Maybe you're in a situation you can't understand."   He sighed, slowly, and said, "Isn't there a slave saying about mindgames?  About the only way to get through them?"

       Mariah looked at him in surprise.  How would he know this?  She said reluctantly, from rote, "The only way to get through a mindgame is to play it through to the end." 

       Animal nodded.  "In this mindgame," he said, "Gabriel helps you to get better." 

       "So they can start the torture over again?" Mariah said.  Her eyes welled with tears, and she writhed at the memory of the torment.  The movement brought new pain.  She repeated, "I won't play." 

       Animal took her good hand.  She tried to draw it back, but he held onto it.  "You wouldn't believe me if I told you that's not how it ends, would you?"  Mariah shook her head.  Animal said, "Then believe this.  If you're alive, you can try again.  Whatever it took to get you as far as  you got, outside the walls, you might get it back if you get strong again."

       Mariah was dubious.  They knew her now. There would never be another chance.

       Animal continued as if he had read her thoughts.  "It couldn't have been easy to escape, and it won't be easy to do it again.  This ... 'mindgame' gives you the hope of another chance. Without it, no hope."

       Mariah realized that what he said made sense.  At the end, they could not make her suffer more than they already had, for it would kill her.  All they could do was put her through it again. 

      On the other hand, hope.  She could not believe she would ever be given another opportunity to run away, but maybe she would be given a chance to talk to other slaves, to spread the word, as Rolanda had talked to her.  She would risk the torture for such a chance.  Animal had seemed fond of Rose.  She would start by talking to her.  A tiny dose of revenge would be to sour the sweet slave, like a drop of lemon in milk. She looked at Animal and nodded her head, slightly.  Then she opened her mouth for the medicine.  As he lifted the spoon to her mouth, she fleetingly wondered if it was acid he was putting in, but it was syrupy goo.   She felt relief and exhaustion at the same time.  "No one will hurt you while you sleep," she heard Animal promise.