Prologue:

       This close to Riviera the path was wide and well-kept enough to ride easily, but the stranger was on foot, leading a dappled gray horse by the harness.  The stranger walked slowly but with some purpose, his hat tilted so his eyes would be shaded and could seek out some distant goal.  The morning sun was strong and hot, and from time to time he wiped his face with a fraying handkerchief gray with dinge.

       A small breeze rose from the west.  The stranger halted his horse and listened for a moment to a sound beyond the rustling of the leaves.  He pushed his hat back on his head as if to give his ears more room.  The sound was almost like a coyote; no, it was the baying of dogs.  The stranger gave a small shrug and a half smile to his horse, and continued on his way.

       He took note of the changing landscape.  Several days ago he had left the old growth forest, with its redwoods that reached impossibly towards the sky and plenty of soft, loamy dirt between the trees.  The newer woods that he had passed through were full of undergrowth and tangled bushes that encroached upon the path, with acres of clearcut scattered here and there.  He had picked up the old road in those woods.  But now the forest began to have an air of planning about it; at spots old oaks and spruces lined the path on either side as if someone had deliberately put them there for shade.  He thought hopefully that he would reach Riviera very soon.

       The dog sounds came nearer, until the stranger could hear them quite plainly despite the plodding of his horse's hooves and his own footfall.  He did not hear the girl, however, until she stumbled out of the forest almost directly in front of him.  He involuntary jumped back, bumping lightly into his horse's nose.  The girl, too, jumped back, and for a heartbeat they stared at each other, each as if the other was an animal upon whose lair the other had encroached.

       Indeed, in that heartbeat the stranger felt an untameness about the girl.  He was jolted with a sick metallic taste in his mouth by the scars, cuts and bruises which riddled every visible inch of her body, save her face, before his mind even became aware of her nakedness.  

       The slight breeze lifted the girl's dark hair, matted and dotted with brambles.  Her eyes were green within green, and for that moment she looked at him as he felt a queen of old might have.  

       The heartbeat passed and in a fluid movement the girl fell to her knees before him, continuing down until her forehead touched the dirt of the path.  The baying of the dogs sounded again and he understood that she was the prey.

       "This slave begs your mercy," the girl said, her voice rough from the exertion of her running.  Although she cowered before him, he could see that her muscles strained.  She was poised to flee.  A dog barked close, too close.

       "I won't hurt you," the stranger said.  "I won't turn you in."  His voice was gravelly and rough, as if he was unused to speaking, and his words had an odd twang. 

       The girl looked up at him, for a moment, her face incredulous.  As quickly the light in her eyes dimmed, like a cloud moving over the sun.  "A mindgame," she said, breathless and bitter.  "You've caught me, master.  I won't play."  She again bowed her head until her forehead touched the path, and waited, motionless. 

       The dogs sounded closer.  The stranger looked towards them, and then back at the prostrate, scarred figure before him.  "Listen to me," he said urgently.  "A quarter mile back, just beyond where the path curves, there's a stream.  The dogs might lose your scent in the water."

       For precious moments the girl did not move.  Another dog bark.  "Go," the stranger urged her.  She raised her head again and looked at him until he was pierced by her gaze.  Then, quiet as thought, she was on her feet, running past him down the path and veering slightly into the woods on her right.

       For a moment the stranger stood motionless.  Then he continued forward, his face looking straight ahead but his eyes wandering as far as they could to his left.  Deliberately he counted to himself fifty paces, and then one hundred, before the dogs, a mass of squirming yellow, brown, and gray, broke out of the woods and were distracted by him from their chase.  They were curious and not unfriendly, and he reached out his wrist to be sniffed by one even as his horse touched noses with another.

       The five hunters were not far behind, nearly as dirty as the girl had been, their clothes wet with sweat.  Upon seeing the stranger they stopped short and looked at each other in surprise. "Greetings, brother," one said, uncertainly.

       "My greetings to you," he replied evenly.

       The hunters shifted uneasily at the sight of a man they did not know wearing odd, travelworn clothes.  After a moment one of them said, "Without meaning to be rude, you can see we are on a hunt.  Have you seen signs of an escaped cunt?  You've put our dogs off her scent."

       He regarded them for a moment.  "Aye, I saw her," he said slowly.  "She came out of the forest ahead of me on the path."  He squinted and tilted back his hat.  "I suggest you look in that direction," he said, pointing down the path in front of him and towards the right.

       "My thanks," the first hunter said, already beginning to jog on with the others.  He yelled over his shoulder, "The cunt's name is Mariah.  Be sure to come to her execution."  He whistled for the dogs.

       The stranger continued on the path, steadily leading his horse, until the hunters were out of sight.  He counted to a hundred to make certain they were not coming back.  Then, dropping his horse's reins, he walked off the path a few feet, leaned unsteadily against a tree, and vomited until there was nothing left but the green bile of his intestines.  He rested a moment, then retrieved a water bottle from his horse's pack, slowly swished his mouth, gargled, and spit.  He came around to the front of his horse and touched her forehead with his own.  "Ah, Peggy," he said, "Maybe this wasn't such a grand idea after all." 

Chapter 1: Entering the gates

       The stranger had tried to steel himself to the size of Riviera, or at least what its size had been two centuries ago.  The first time he looked at the maps in Harmony's library he assumed the scale must be wrong.  The elders assured him there was no error.  Harmony, with all its outlying farms and valleys, would fit into Riviera's walled land a hundred times or more.

       Nevertheless, when at late morning the old road broke out of the trees into a meadow, with a muted gasp the stranger pulled his horse up short.  The far side of the field ended at a ten foot high stone wall covered with barbed wire which seemed to curve around to either side into eternity.

       The path cut through the meadow at an angle to a gate about a quarter mile beyond.  This should be the Holden Outpost, the same gate by which Harmony's founders had left Riviera so many generations before.

       The loud caw of a crow from a tree above startled the stranger out of his reverie, and he clicked his tongue, urging his horse forward.  After days in the forest he felt nervous in the open field, and he kicked the horse into a trot until they were in the morning shadow of the wrought iron gate.  The stranger dismounted and peered through the bars. 

       Inside, the meadow continued, and so did the road.  To its right was a small house covered with yellow paint which in places was peeling.  The house had a sagging wraparound porch, and on it was a woman dressed in a green tunic and leggings, leaning her chair back on two legs until it rested against the wall.  Her face hung slack, and delicate snores escaped her mouth.  Her long strawberry blond hair hung in heavy braid over one shoulder, with wisps escaping here and there.  By her side, on the floor of the porch, also sleeping, curled up like a dog, was a naked man with dark curly hair and pinkish skin mottled by cuts and bruises.  His only covering was a metal collar, perhaps two inches wide, around his neck, attached by a long chain to a post of the porch.

       The stranger cleared his throat. Neither gatekeeper nor slave stirred.  He called out but they did not hear.  His horse came to his rescue, snorting impatiently.

       The slave awoke with a start, scrambling to his hands and knees and looking around in confusion.  The stranger cleared his throat again.  The slave, seeing him, bowed his head to the floor but overshot, hitting it with a bang.  Whimpering, he slid his entire torso back down to the ground and kissed the floor boards, pushing his mouth down until the stranger was certain he would get blisters on his lips.  By his side, the gatekeeper slept on.                  

       "Excuse me," the stranger said in the most courteous tone he could manage, although his voice croaked from lack of use.  The slave boy looked up again, and immediately lowered his head in a panic.  Slowly he looked up again, as if he were a small child playing peek-a-boo.  The stranger made no move.  After a moment of deliberation, the slave boy carefully wriggled up to where his mistress' boots touched the floor, and cautiously nuzzled their toes.

       The gatekeeper woke in an instant.  "You dare," she hissed, and kicked him, hard, in the throat.   

       "No, don't," the stranger cried out, involuntarily, from behind the gate.  The slave fell back and made a gurgling sound, but did not move his hands to his throat. 

       At the sound of the stranger's voice, the gatekeeper looked up, startled.  She had light blue eyes and a fine, aquiline nose just a touch too narrow.  The stranger realized the woman was younger then he had first assumed.  Her mouth opened and closed in surprise, and then she broke into an easy laugh.  "Whyever not?" she said.  Absently she took the whip from her belt, doubled it over, and smashed it into the slave's lower back, marking a half circle in his skin.   The slave keened through closed lips but did not move.  The stranger grasped the wrought iron of the gate tightly, and looked away.

       The gatekeeper took no further notice of the slave, but arose from her chair and descended down the two or three steps of the porch.  Lazily, as if stretching, she pulled from her tunic and then overhead a leather string with a large metal key attached.  Turning the key in the gate's lock, she pulled back and the gate opened easily.  She stood aside and let the stranger lead his horse through.  "You didn't leave by this gate or I'd have been expecting you back," she remarked defensively.

       "I'm sorry," said the stranger, embarrassed.  "I didn't mean to put you out.  Or cause trouble for him," he added indicating the slave with a jerk of his head.

       The gatekeeper laughed in a puzzled way.  "You're an odd one, aren't you?" she said.  She reached up tentatively and touched Pegasus' long snout, smiling when she softly snorted.  "Say, this is a fine beast.  What stable is she from?  She could use some water, I bet."  She gave him a friendly, expectant smile, while at the same time yanking on the chain attached to the slave's collar, causing him to slide headfirst down the porch steps.

       The sick metallic feeling flooded the stranger's limbs.  He shook his head to clear his mind.  Misunderstanding him, the gatekeeper frowned.  "You should mind your horse better," she said. "You can't always put your needs above the beast's."   For emphasis she kicked the naked slave who had come to stand on his hands and knees at her side.  The slave gave a short keening through closed lips but made no other sign.

       Recklessly the stranger grabbed at the gatekeeper's arm.

       "I mean no disrespect to you," he said in a strained voice. "But maybe out of hospitality to a visitor to your land you could be kinder to the fellow." 

       The gatekeeper started and stared, and then laughed a low laugh.  "A visitor!  To Riviera!" she exclaimed.  "Well, I'll be."  She looked at him closely for the first time, taking in his odd clothes.  "Say, you're not from Alphronsia, are you?  I had an aunt who went visiting there once.  Never came back."

       The stranger shook his head.  "No, not from so far.  I come from Harmony."

       "Harmony!" The gatekeeper looked him up and down, slowly, and then over to his horse.  "You don't look like much of a rebel, but you never can tell, my Da says.  Are you the healer that was sent for, then?  I thought it would be an elder that would come."  She frowned at him.

       "I am the healer.  I finished my apprenticeship these two years past."  A little embarrassed, he held out his hand for her to shake, and added, "I am called Gabriel." 

       "I am Tanya," she said, taking his hand limply.  She continued formally, "I welcome you to Riviera."  Then she smiled as if amused by her own words.

       Gabriel looked down at the slave who continued to cower on hands and knees by Tanya's side, again feeling the green, sick feeling.  The slave was a grown man, or nearly so.  His dark, curly hair hung over his face, hiding it, and his limbs were so thin that they put Gabriel in mind of coyote's.  The slave's shoulders trembled, but whether from fear or exertion Gabriel could not tell.  If he was aware of Gabriel's scrutiny he gave no sign.

       Tanya, seeing Gabriel's intense observation of the slave, said, "Griley's not much good that way.  No more energy than a snake in the shade.  But if you've the need and inclination after your journey, one slave kneeling over is pretty much like another.  You're welcome to him."

       Gabriel looked at her in complete bafflement, until he realized with a shock what she meant.  "Oh, no," he said, involuntarily taking a step back from her and the slave. 

       Tanya furrowed her eyebrows in annoyance.  "Which side you favor is nothing to me," she said. "We've no superstitions here." Griley remained silent and motionless, except for the tremors in his shoulders, which seemed to be increasing.

       Gabriel forced himself to take a deep, slow breath into his diaphragm, sending the air to find his center of gravity.  The green feeling subsided slightly.  "You've misunderstood me," he said.  "I was looking at him only because I am a healer.  Some of his cuts are infected, and I see can see from here he's feverish. I'd like to try to make him more comfortable."

       Tanya frowned, deeply and angrily.  Gabriel hoped the expression on his own face was pleasant, even as he determined to himself that he would treat the man whatever Tanya said, and whatever the consequences.  He hoped to reach the Bearer's daughter, and to acquit himself well, but he could not put that purpose above the man who cowered before him.  He had taken the healer's oath and he would uphold it.

       Tanya contemplated his countenance.  After a moment she stepped aside, stiffly and grudgingly, her shoulders taut with anger that belied her staccato words. "In Riviera we believe in hospitality to strangers.  You can do with him as you like while I send a homing pigeon ahead with news of your arrival.  His key is in his collar."  She turned on her heel and walked purposefully around the far side of the house, not looking back.

       As Gabriel approached the groveling figure he saw that, indeed, the heavy metal collar that was locked around Griley's throat had a key in it.  In disbelief that Griley had not attempted to remove the collar, Gabriel swiftly bent to one knee in front of him, turned the key and took off the collar.  He flung it into the dirt some feet away.  The metal had left a red tattoo in Griley's neck.  Gabriel asked him softly, "Are you in pain?"

       "Yes, sir," Griley responded in a hushed, cracked voice.  He bowed his head down to the ground.

       "I am a healer," Gabriel said.  "Will you let me help you?"

       Griley did not lift his forehead from the ground.  "I am your vessel, master," he said raggedly.

       Gabriel shuddered and sat next to the man's bent over figure, looking at the bloody X cut in his back by Tanya's whip. He saw that Griley's entire back was covered with scars and whipmarks.  He touched gently next to where the X crossed.  "Is that where it hurts the most?" he said softly.

       "I am your vessel, master," Griley repeated.  He raised his head slightly and coughed, a dry rasping cough.  Then he quickly lowered his head again, banging his forehead on the ground without a whimper.

       Gabriel reached for his waterskin hanging at his waist and uncorked the top.  "Can you sit up?" he asked Griley. Griley instantly raised up his body and sat back on his knees, his head down, his eyes staring expressionless at the ground in front of him.  Gabriel pressed his waterskin into Griley's hand.  "Drink," he said, "It will make you feel better." 

       Griley obediently raised the water skin and squirted water into his mouth, swallowing it without expression.  Gabriel stood and went to Pegasus, who had wandered a few steps away, gently munching on a stray thistle at the side of the road.  Distractedly Gabriel petted her neck for a moment, and then retrieved a pack from the bags hanging on Pegasus' saddle.  He fiddled with various small, odd shaped paper and leather packets until he found the one he was looking for.  Taking out a cake of soap, he turned back to the slave, who was still pouring water into his mouth and swallowing robotically.  Gabriel gently took the skin from him.  "Easy," he said.  "You don't want to drown in that."  Griley kept his head tilted back, expressionless.

       Gabriel wet his hands with water from the skin, and washed with the soap.  Returning it to his pack, he again looked at various packets until he found a bunch of dried leaves, and, with more ease, a small clay bowl wrapped in leather.  He poured a few drops of water into the bowl and then crushed the leaves into dust over it, stirring the mixture into paste with his forefinger.

       Returning to Griley, Gabriel knelt in front of him and put the bowl on the ground between them.  Griley was still looking up to the heavens.  Gabriel sat motionless for several minutes, merely looking steadily at the slave, and breathing slowly and deeply.  At length, with a moan, the slave shivered and then looked at Gabriel full in the face, his pupils dilated with fear. He started to look up again, but Gabriel said, "It's all right.  I won't hurt you."  Griley's eyes widened but he looked down, towards Gabriel's knees, rather than up.  This seemed to be a much more comfortable stance.

       Gabriel continued to breathe deeply and slowly, almost ostentatiously, into his belly.  Slowly, subtly, Griley's own breathing slowed and became deeper, until the bellies of the two men rose and fell in sync.  They sat thus, otherwise motionless. The pupil's of Griley's eyes slowly returned to normal size, and the tremors in his shoulder calmed.

       Without interrupting the flow of his breathing, and moving so slowly that he barely seemed to moving at all, Gabriel dipped his finger into the paste he had made, and, ever so slowly, moved around to Griley's back.  Gently, he spread the paste over the X where the worst of Griley's cut's crossed.  Griley gave a start at his first touch, but then was still.

       "The cassia will help your wounds heal, and fight infection," Gabriel said to him softly.  "This concoction isn't very strong, but it should relieve some of your pain and make you more comfortable."

       To Gabriel's dismay, Griley began to cry, first a sniffle and then a sob.  "Not kindness, Master," he begged, and he threw his body to the ground and banged his forehead on the dirt.  "Not the kindness mindgame."  He stuck out his tongue and began to feverishly lick the ground in front of him.

       "It's not a game," Gabriel said desperately. "I want to help you.  I'm a healer."

       Griley looked up and made a sound between a croon and a groan.  "Master, they only sent me to the gatehouse because I'm ready to die," he pleaded.  "I've nothing left of any use.  No kindness.  No mindgames.  Please..."  Griley sobbed and banged his head into the dirt again. 

       Gabriel dove to the ground and put shoved his hands under Griley's forehead, shielding it from the hard dirt, desperately trying to stop the man from seriously injuring himself.  When his forehead touched Gabriel's soft palms, Griley stopped pounding his head, but he continued sobbing, on the verge of hyperventilating.  Gabriel gently extricated his hands and reached under Griley's shoulders, pulling gently until he sat up. With his arm still around Griley's shoulder, Gabriel pulled him close, like he would a scared child.  He searched for words to say to the man, but could find none.  Instead, he softly stroked Griley's head, crooning softly.  Griley began to relax and breathe more normally, and the danger of hyperventilation passed. Gabriel could still feel his pulse beating wildly, though, and he knew the man was terrified.  He closed his eyes, matching his breath to Griley's shallow breath, only ever so gently beginning to slow it down. 

       His meditation was interrupted by a whistle and Tanya's voice saying, "Well, I'll be." 

       Griley tried to escape from Gabriel's grip and bow down before her, but Gabriel placed his other arm in front of his body, keeping him upright and steadying him.  Griley began to shake uncontrollably and to cry again, and he muttered, "Mercy, mercy," whether to Tanya or to Gabriel himself, or to both, Gabriel did not know.  Griley tried again to bow down before Tanya, but Gabriel restrained him. 

       "Shsh," he said to the slave.  "Tanya won't hurt you again, will you, Tanya?" and he looked at her, pleading.

       Tanya pursed her lips together until they formed two thin whitish lines.  "You overreach yourself, Healer," she said.  "He is my slave."  

       Griley trembled and moaned, and hid his face in Gabriel's arm.  "Stop it!" Tanya hissed at him.  In terror Griley pulled himself away from Gabriel and threw himself to the ground in front of Tanya, completely prostrate, sniffling.  

       Tanya ignored him.  She spoke coldly to Gabriel.  "The Bearer sent for you.  I didn't.  If you've a mind to spoil and ruin his slaves, that's your business and his.  But I'll thank you to leave mine alone."  In her anger, Tanya's face had turned pale, save for two round red spots on each cheek and one at the tip of her nose. 

       Gabriel willed his heart to beat more slowly.  He took a breath so deep his lungs hurt, expelled it slowly, and said to her, "You call him a slave but he is a man.  You've no right to treat him so."

       Tanya's green eyes seemed to take on a yellow tint, and her pupils shrank to tiny specks.  "No right?" she shrieked.  "No right? I'll show you my rights."  She took her whip and began to slash at Griley's bare back with it.  Gabriel grabbed at her wrist, and the whip went wide, barely brushing Gabriel's side.  Tanya wrenched away and whipped at Griley again.  This time Gabriel grabbed the whip itself, which wrapped around his hand several times, cutting him.  Ignoring or oblivious to the pain, Gabriel pulled, and the handle came flying from Tanya's hand, hitting him smartly on the forehead.

       "How dare you?"  Tanya hissed.

       Before Gabriel could answer, a man's voice said from behind them, "Yes, how dare you?"

       Gabriel and Tanya both turned in surprise.  A tall, balding man with a belly that preceded him, held a great tan mare by the reins, and looked upon them with a stern face.  As neither Gabriel or Tanya said anything, the man's frown deepened.  "Perhaps you'd care to explain why you are interfering with Gatekeeper Tanya's oversight of her slave?"  he asked Gabriel in a slow, ponderous tone.

       The whip was still wrapped around Gabriel's hand, which was beginning to throb.  Ignoring it, Gabriel said, more heatedly than he would have liked, "I am interfering with senseless torture.  No creature should be treated in this manner."  His statement was punctuated by a deep sob from Griley.

       The man puckered his eyebrows in surprise and crossed his arms about his chest, scrutinizing Gabriel intensely.  He said, after a moment, with exaggerated courtesy, "Surely you do not say that Mistress Tanya has not complete dominion over her own slave?"

       Tanya broke in, angrily.  "He knows nothing, Jonquil.  He is a rebel come from Harmony."  She spat her words as if anxious to have them leave her mouth.

       Jonquil looked from Tanya to Gabriel and took a step back, as if to get a more complete view of him.  "Are you then the healer sent for by the Bearer to attend his daughter?"  Tanya scowled, but let Gabriel answer.

       "I am," he said simply.

       Jonquil bowed stiffly.  "On behalf of the Bearer and his daughter I thank you for answering the summons."  The corners of his mouth turned down, and his eyebrows frowned. "Being a guest and a stranger here, of course you do not know our ways.  If you will accompany me to the mansion, we will get you settled immediately."

       A low moan came from Griley.  Realizing he had made noise, he began to lick at the dirt beneath his face, frantically, his tongue making a circle.

       Gabriel clutched at the whip which was still wrapped around his hand.  "I'm sorry," he said, trying to match Jonquil's tone of polite aloofness.  "Griley is my patient now.  I cannot leave him while he suffers."

       Tanya gave an exasperated snort.  "He is a slave.  He lives only to suffer."  She looked petulantly at Jonquil.

       Jonquil nodded in agreement.  "The gatekeeper speaks the truth," he said.  "The creature is her slave.  If she wants him to suffer, no one may interfere."  Griley moaned again and stopped licking the dirt, but merely lay utterly motionless. 

       Gabriel took a step towards Griley, as if to protect him, and turned to face Jonquil and Tanya, legs firmly planted.  He crossed his arms, the whip handle dangling down. 

       Jonquil contemplated him for a moment, and then said, with the barest nervous crack in his polite facade, "Come, come, dwellers of Harmony and Riviera are cousins.  Surely we can find common ground here." 

       Tanya spat, "You can't be afraid of him, Jonquil.  Look at him.  He's bedraggled as a farm dick and has no more strength than one just out of the factory." 

       Jonquil enunciated, as if trying to overcome a lisp, "I am not afraid of the healer, gatekeeper Tanya.  I am considering the options."  He paused.  "A compromise must be reached," he declared.  "Tanya will agree not to punish the slave for today's events." 

       Gabriel interrupted, heatedly.  "Punish him! He's done nothing!"

       Jonquil held up his hand to silence Gabriel.  "She will agree not to punish him for today's events," he repeated, "And she will agree that if he does not misbehave she will neither beat nor torture him for two weeks."

       Tanya sputtered again, in protest, but Jonquil ignored her, speaking to Gabriel.  "That will give the creature time to heal his wounds and perhaps even to win his mistress's affections.  No more can be asked."

       Jonquil held Gabriel's gaze for a minute and then looked away, coloring slightly.  Gabriel's blood roared in his ears as he saw Griley, prostrate on the ground.  Deliberately he unwrapped the whip from his hand, resisting the urge to rub his cut hand. 

       A long, petrified groan came from Griley.  The knowledge broke like a dropped egg on Gabriel that he could not make a stand here.  Would he insist that Griley be set free?  The concept was meaningless.  Griley could not take care of himself, even if he were healthy, outside of these walls.  He would die of exposure in a day, or of hunger in a week at most.  Freedom within the walls for him was impossible.  He was one of--how many?  Tens of thousands of slaves, or more, for all Gabriel knew.  They would not be freed on account of one stranger asking for it. 

       Gabriel looked back at Jonquil and slowly nodded his acquiescence, bile building at the back of his throat.   Jonquil clasped his hands together.  He turned to Tanya and said, "I shall certainly convey your good grace in this matter, gatekeeper," he said.  "Your sacrifice will not go unnoted." 

       Tanya frowned angrily, but said nothing.  His face turned away from Gabriel, Jonquil winked at her, then turned back to Gabriel solemnly.  "If your horse does not require further rest," he said,  "I suggest we leave.  The mansion is two hours on the road, and there is no sense in delaying."  He looked hard at Gabriel, and his meaning was unmistakable.

       Nevertheless, Gabriel turned deliberately and strode to Griley, lowering himself to the ground beside the man.  Griley made no sound or indication that he was aware of his presence.  After a long moment, Gabriel reached out and smoothed the slave's hair.  Without moving, Griley said in a voice so low only Gabriel could hear him, "Not kindness, master.  Please not kindness." 

       Gabriel removed his hand.  "I'm sorry," he said in a whisper, and turned away.  

       Chapter 2: Toward the Mansion

       For a mile or more the path led through meadowland, lush and full of birds and mice.  Nervous in wide-open spaces after so long journeying through forest, Gabriel was relieved to enter what he thought was woods, but the stand of trees was no more than thirty feet wide.  On the other side was more meadow, and then the farmland began, spreading forward as far as his eye could see. 

       As they left the tree stand, Jonquil turned and looked back, as if to make sure they were alone.  "Don't judge Tanya too harshly," he said conversationally.  "The gatehouse is her first posting, and a punishment posting at that.  She is very young." 

       Gabriel began to reply, but his throat tightened.  When he was certain his voice would sound natural, he asked in imitation of idle curiosity, "What is she being punished for?"

       Jonquil gave a half laugh, half snort.  "She was too fond of a slave.  Got into a fight over him with some people who wanted to have fun with him.  Showed no respect for her betters."  He added, as an afterthought, "Not uncommon in the young.  Do her good to have some time to think and reflect on her priorities." 

       Gabriel looked at Jonquil in surprise, both at the content of what he said and the lack irony in his voice.  At length he asked, "What happened to the slave?"

       Jonquil gave a bark of laughter.  "Do us a world of good to have a rebel among us, I see.  The slave was sent to the exchange, I expect."  At Gabriel's puzzled look, he added, "A trading post, where those tired of their slaves leave them off, and those looking for new blood pick them up.  You'll see it, I'm sure." 

       As they spoke, they followed the road through a cultivated field.  By Gabriel's eye it was a full acre devoted to kale.  In Harmony the farmers tended to grow crops together, intensely cultivating the land and using the plants to fertilize and shade each other, and to stop pests from spreading.  Here, Gabriel noted, as they passed a boundary into an acre of tomatillos, each field was discrete. 

       In the distance farmers were assiduously picking peas whose tendrils twined around lengths of string stretching from stake to stake.  As they drew near, Gabriel realized with a jolt that the farmers were naught but children, naked and thin.  They paid Gabriel and Jonquil no mind, or deliberately ignored them, not even looking up when their horses passed near.  None seemed older than their early teens, and some were scarcely more than babes.  In the next field, Gabriel watched a little boy hoeing dirt into small hills the size to plant corn.  Gabriel wondered at the strange tattoos on the child's skin, until, his heart in his throat, he realized they were scars. 

       Occasionally Gabriel also saw an adult in the fields, clothed, clearly a "master or mistress", and if they happened to catch sight of the riders they nodded or tipped their hats.  Mostly they seemed to congregate in the shade of buildings in the middle of the fields in groups of two or three, but some walked around the fields, instructing the child-farmers, examining their work, or, two or three times, administering a beating.  The first time Gabriel saw this, a tall, slim woman was viciously kicking a very small boy, who, like Griley, lay on the ground without attempting to shield or defend himself.  Jonquil lifted his hand towards Gabriel warningly and said in a mocking voice, "Don't go trying to save that one too.  The walls’ll tumble before I'll live down interfering with Tanya and her beast." 

       They passed wagons, dragged by draft horses or slaves, empty going past them towards the outer fields, or full, going slowly the same direction as the travellers.  Some of the horses whickered at Pegasus or at Aphid, Jonquil's horse, but, like the farmmasters, the drivers of the wagons would nod politely and go about their business.        

       In an apple orchard, Gabriel's attention was drawn by the sound of shouting to his right.  Looking down a row of trees, he saw a man beating a naked girl of about thirteen with a heavy stick, surrounded by a half-circle of the ubiquitous naked children.  The man rained the blows mostly at the girl's chest, which had only the beginning of bumps on it.  The girl emitted shrill squeals through closed lips which were bleeding from her biting them.  The ends of her long hair were tied tightly to a tree bough a foot above her head, so that if she moved to avoid the blows she would be hanging from her hair.  Jonquil cleared his throat warningly.  Gabriel averted his eyes from the scene.

       In an apparent effort to distract Gabriel, Jonquil asked him general, polite questions about life in Harmony.  Gabriel was surprised at how little Jonquil was able to tell him in turn about basic facets of life in Riviera.  He was wholly ignorant about farming techniques, about how food was distributed, or even about who had woven the clothes he wore.  At last Jonquil threw up his hands, laughing.  "Ask me about border riding and I'll tell you all," he said.  "Or about where to find the softest, freshest, blondest slave cunt to warm your bed and prepare your food.  Or about the domestic travails of my good wife and her five wayward children.  As to all other things I live in blissful ignorance."  He kicked his horse into a trot to emphasize his point.

       They passed through several pastures, and then cropland again.  The road was more travelled here, and several times Jonquil stopped to have a brief conversation with a rider or driver, but never introduced Gabriel, and they showed no curiosity towards him. 

       Despite the signs of increasing civilization, Gabriel jolted with surprise when the road brought them through a few rows of pine trees into a huge expanse of lawn, so enormous that Gabriel could not make out the edges of it to either side of him.  Half a mile in front was the mansion itself.  The largest building in Gabriel's home, Harmony, was Centric Hall, where the whole community came together to break bread on feast days.  Gabriel could not even begin to calculate how many thousands of times the Hall would fit into this mansion.  As amazing to him as its expanse was its height, as it rose up four stories in places.  In Harmony many families had attics in their houses for storage, or lofts for sleeping, but to put a building on top of itself like this was a marvel unheard of.

       

       The lawn itself contained pockets of activity.  Here, a group of masters and mistresses catching the afternoon sun, sprawled on long, low divans, while slaves fanned them. There, a small group of children with an adult reading a book to them.  Here, a fierce faced mistress slapping a slave's bottom with a flyswatter as the slave leans over and touches her toes.  There, two slaves coupling as a mistress stands over them, watching them carefully.  Here, a slave mows the lawn while another rakes the leavings nearby.  There, a woman in a bright red tunic dozes as she leans against a gnarled oak tree.

       The lackadaisical, humdrum quality of the human torture that imbued this place was as horrifying to Gabriel as the acts themselves.  Already he could feel himself beginning to become inured to it, as he had seen patients get used to chronic pain until it was no more than background like the noise of crickets on a summer night.  He wondered despairingly how he could fight the numbness.  He wished Dalma, or any of the elders of Harmony, were here to advise him. 

       Jonquil impatiently shifted his corpulent body in his seat. Gaining Gabriel's attention, he reined his horse to the left, following a road that skirted the lawn.  Gabriel clucked to Pegasus to follow. 

       "Horses aren't allowed on the lawn itself," Jonquil explained conversationally.  "Some people are afraid of them, and they make a mess."  As they rode, Gabriel continued to look over his shoulder at the scenes of life, and death, on the lawn.  More than once he involuntarily tugged on the reins, as if stopping his horse would stop a stick from descending onto a slave's prostrate body, or stop a boot from reaching a slave's knee.  With disgust Gabriel realized that he had already started thinking of these people as "slaves."  He shook his head abruptly, trying to keep his thoughts clear.

       Watching the lawn intently, Gabriel had not noticed that they had ridden through the shadow of long, low barn on their left, and were now approaching a huge stable.  His attention was drawn by the snorting and stamping of horses, to Gabriel’s mind the first friendly sounds he had heard since passing through the gates hours earlier.  Pegasus seemed cheered as well, her ears pricking and her step livelier. 

       Jonquil turned left past the stable building, into a yard bordered by the stable on one side and another road opposite.  Gabriel was taken aback by the sheer size of the structure.  As they had ridden past the building Gabriel calculated fifty horses could be housed against the outer wall.  Entering the yard, he saw that there were ten doorways in a long row, each leading into its own massive stable.

       Like the much larger lawn, the stable yard contained flurries of discrete activity.  Horses, ridden and led by both slaves and masters and mistresses, crossed in various directions, stood for a brief grooming, or drank from a trough.  Masters and mistresses spoke with slaves, or beat them, or ignored them.  Where several bales of hay were stacked against one of the stable walls, a slave and his mistress quietly made love.

 

       Jonquil dismounted and stopped a slave who was hurrying towards the entrance with a curry brush in hand.  Placing both hands on her shoulders and forcing her to look him in the eye, Jonquil said clearly and slowly, "Do you know Master Darius?"  The girl's eyes widened and she nodded, slack jawed with fear.  Jonquil did not relax his grip on her.  "Go find him.  Tell him Master Jonquil has returned with a visitor."  The girl nodded again, but Jonquil did not release his grip.  "Master Jonquil, with a visitor.  Remember."  The girl nodded a third time.  Jonquil let her go.  She began to run, remembered she was carrying the brush, stopped, put it down, began to pick it up again in confusion, dropped it, and then, with a backward glance at Jonquil, sprinted away.

       Gabriel dismounted, feeling bereft at the thought of leaving his one friend in this strange place.  He walked around to Pegasus' nose, petting its softness. She whickered, blowing into his hand.  Gabriel felt she was as ill at ease as he.

       A shortish, pencil thin man dressed entirely in black came striding up to them.  He looked clearly annoyed, but relaxed when he saw Jonquil. "Ah, it's you,"  he said.  "Should've known.  Forget where you stable your horse?" 

       Jonquil sniffed.  "I would never bother the stable master for a matter such as that.  I bring important news and personage and horse."  He turned to Gabriel and said formally, "Darius, stable master, may I present you to Gabriel, traveling healer from Harmony." 

       Darius nodded curtly at Gabriel but showed more interest in Pegasus.  "That's not the horse the lad rode off on," he said in an offended tone.  His pencil thin mustache curved down in a sneer.  "And the lad's not with you," he added accusingly.

       Gabriel stuck out his hand to shake, and after a hesitation Darius took it, limply.  "My apologies, sir," Gabriel said.  "Neither the horse nor the lad were in condition to return immediately.  But both can be fairly expected before full harvest." 

       "Full harvest?"  Darius' sneer found its way into his voice. "Every day is full harvest here, sir.  We are men, not vagabonds."

       Jonquil intervened.  "Come, come, Darius," he said in his booming voice.  "You know right well the man means tenth month.  Let's get his horse to stable and us to dinner and we'll all be better men for it."  Jonquil gave Darius a look which said he'd better be.

       Darius held his hands up in limp surrender.  "No harm meant," he said.  "Take the horse to the third stable, along with your bay mare.  I guess Stefan will have that empty spot for a while longer," he added, sardonically.

       

       "Thank you," Gabriel said, following Jonquil as he crossed in front of the stables.

       In front of the third to last stable entrance, Jonquil stopped and peered into the dim light.  "Halloo," he boomed in, and stepped slightly into the entrance. 

       Almost immediately, a heavyset dark skinned man came running out and skidded to his knees in front of Jonquil, bringing his head towards the floor.  "Your servant, master," the slave said in a remarkably courteous tone for all that he was out of breath.

       The slave was plumper than any others Gabriel had seen, indeed leaning towards fat.  In addition, although he waited at obvious attention for orders, the slave's forehead did not quite touch the ground and he was not trembling.  His backside was, however, covered with scars both fresh and healing. 

       "Ah, good, good," Jonquil said to the slave.  "Find your master and tell him Jonquil is here with a stranger."

       The slave bowed lower and then immediately rose to his feet, hurrying down the long, narrow stable.  Gabriel saw that he was more muscle than fat, and he walked with both grace and confidence.  He also saw that the scars travelled from the man's neck to his ankles.

       "Fine slaves, these," Jonquil said to him.  "I'd take any one of them for my own, if Stefan would part with them.  He never will though.  Too fond of 'em, though he won't admit it.  Unnatural, almost."

       Jonquil interrupted himself as a man stepped out of a stable into which the slave had just disappeared.  Stefan was tall and slender, with gray eyes and light brown hair that needed a trim. Although he was dressed much like the other men in a somewhat faded green open necked tunic and tan riding pants, on him these clothes seemed only to accentuate his broad shoulders and fine physique.  Gabriel guessed the man to be about his own age.  As he strode towards the waiting group, Gabriel saw that the knees of Stefan's pants were covered with mud and straw, and dirt spattered about him.

       Stefan nodded politely.  "Jonquil," he said, "I trust the latest horse was satisfactory."  There was no questioning tone in Stefan's voice, and the right corner of his mouth turned up in a small sneer. 

       "Excellent horse, excellent," Jonquil boomed.  "Yours always are.  Not like some around here."  Stefan merely watched him, expressionless.  "So I've brought you one more."  At Stefan's look of surprise, Jonquil added, "Already spoke to Darius, it's all arranged.  Fine horse, shouldn't be no trouble to you." 

       Stefan's brow puckered with annoyance and consternation.  "Practically full up here," he said.  "Darius knows that."  Unconsciously his hand went to the whip hanging at his belt. 

       Jonquil held up both hands in mock surrender.  "My dear fellow," he said, "Most special circumstances here.  Wouldn't bother you for anything less."  He turned and beckoned to Gabriel, who stepped forward, shy at the trouble he was causing. Jonquil continued, "This young fellow is Gabriel.  Came here all the way from Harmony, just to look at the Bearer's daughter.  Came ahorseback of course.  The lad's not with him, nor his mount, so Darius knows you've a spare room."  He added ingratiatingly, "Horse needs the best care.  You can give it to her.  Fine horse, too."

       Stefan's lips formed a tight, white line for a moment, and his hand fondled the whip attached to his belt as he looked at Gabriel with cold eyes.  "Rudy is well?" he asked in a cold voice, implying that he had better like the answer.

       Gabriel nodded.  "The horse is better than the boy," he said.  "The boy had pneumonia, but Rudy just needs some time to get his legs back.  It was the horse's nose that brought them safely to Harmony at the end."   

       Stefan looked mollified.   As he glanced beyond to Pegasus, who Gabriel held loosely by the rein, his expression changed entirely.  He took a step towards the horse and then stopped abruptly.  "May I?"  he inquired of Gabriel, who, with a touch of misgiving, nodded assent and handed him the reins.  Standing about eighteen inches in front of the horse, Stefan held the reins for half a minute, motionless, staring into Pegasus eyes.  His hands moved minutely as he let the reins down, so they dangled from the horse's bit towards the ground.  After waiting half a minute longer he slowly raised his hand to the bridge of her nose and rubbed.  Pegasus pricked her ears forward but otherwise did not move. Stefan massaged her jaw then, softly.  Pegasus whickered softly and laid her chin on his shoulder, then backed up.

       As Stefan turned to him, Gabriel fought jealousy.  Stefan gave him a half smile that was almost sympathetic.  "I never saw a horse with a jaw  that shape," he said.  "Do you breed them that way on purpose?"

       Gabriel shook his head.  "We sometimes mix our horses with feral ones that run the plains a few days from Harmony.  Pegasus came out of a mare that was more pet than workhorse.  Her sire was a plains stallion.  She gets her temperament from her ma, and her stamina and her jaw line from the stallion."     

       

       Stefan frowned.  "Horses don't get their temperaments from their begetters," he said sharply.  "They get them from the people who raise them or break them."

       Jonquil stepped between the two men. "Gentlemen, gentlemen," he said.  "Very interesting debate, I'm sure.  You must continue it some other time.  But let's get this poor horse its supper, and ours as well."

       Stefan accorded the man his cool look.  Then he turned with considerable more warmth to Gabriel.  "You'll want to see her stable, and the slave who will care for her, I assume."

       "Oh, no," Gabriel said hastily, to which Stefan responded with a surprised frown.  "I mean," he said, "I take care of my own horse.  I appreciate your stable no end, but I've no use for your slave." 

       Jonquil sighed vehemently and tapped his foot.  Stefan turned to him.  After a moment he drawled, "No need to bore you. I've a chesty young thing from Cilla's in my office.  Help yourself, and I'll let you know when we're done here."

       Jonquil shrugged but looked cheered.  "Mighty hospitable of you," he said.  "Border riding's dry work."  Glancing in the office, he evidently approved of what he saw, for he hurried inside and closed the door with such eagerness that it slammed. 

       Stefan, turned to Gabriel with tiny, abashed smile.  "Let's get your horse to stable," he said.  "Couldn't be needier than Jonquil but some sweet cultivated oats after weeks of leaves and meadow grass would probably go down fast." 

       Turning into the dimming recesses of the stable, Stefan walked quickly and with perfect confidence that Gabriel and the horse would follow.

       Glancing curiously into the stalls as he passed, Gabriel saw that they were mostly occupied.  The horses ranged from little ponies to restless stallions, but all were well-tended, with clean, shiny coats and plenty of feed and clean water at hand. 

       "Ah, Jordan, a moment of your time if you please," Stefan said directly in front of Gabriel, who stopped short, realizing that he had been gawking rather than watching where he was going. 

       A pixie-like slave appeared at the entry of a stable to their right.  Little more than five feet tall, she had reddish brown hair cropped short which threatened to fly in all directions at once.  Taut muscles outlined her thin limbs.  Her downcast eyes were fixed on Stefan's boots, but she did not fall to her knees before him.  She stood quietly and without trembling. 

       Stefan looked at the girl, expressionless except for the slightest twitching of the right corner of his mouth, before saying, "Rudy's stall is clean?"  His tone indicated that it had better be.

       For an instant the girl looked up, a quick quiet smile flashing before she remembered herself and looked down again.  "Yes, my lord," she replied in a slightly breathless tone that sounded surprisingly like happiness to Gabriel. 

       Stefan blinked in surprise and then sighed rather than spoke a soft, "Oh."  He reached out slowly and raised the slave girl's chin until she was looking him in the eye again.  He lowered his hand but the girl's gaze did not waiver.  There was no fear in her eyes and she seemed to be fighting a smile.  "Rudy's not back yet," Stefan said gently.  "I'm putting another horse in his stable."  

       

       "Oh," Jordan breathed, unconsciously echoing her master.  Her smile faded and she looked down again and then back at Stefan.

       Stefan indicated Gabriel.  "This is Master Gabriel, and his horse, Pegasus," he said. 

       Jordan looked immediately to Gabriel's feet and bowed her head, showing humility and great dignity at the same time.  Then she looked up and beyond him to Pegasus.  The corners of her mouth twitched and when Pegasus stamped her foot and snorted, tossing her head, Jordan smiled.  "Taking care of your horse is an honor to me," she said to Gabriel, looking again at his feet. She said it with such feeling that Gabriel wondered if she might not actually mean it. 

       Stefan said quickly, "You are not to care for the horse, Jordan."  She looked him full in the face in surprise.  "Master Gabriel will care for the horse himself.  You will provide him with any assistance he needs, but you're not to go near the horse without his express permission." 

       Jordan's eyebrows furrowed in confusion and she frowned, but she said only, in a small, humble voice, "Of course, my lord."

       Gabriel was embarressed by the intimacy of the scene. Stefan opened his mouth as if to speak, and then closed it, swallowed, and said to the girl, "You are excused from the lottery tonight. See to Master Gabriel's needs and then to the loft."

       Jordan nodded.  "Yes, my lord.  Thank you, my lord," she said, in her quiet tone.

       Stefan stepped passed Jordan, half turning to Gabriel.  "The cunt will see to everything you need.  If you've any complaints, let me know."  His tone was harsh but, almost as if he did not realize it, as he walked by Jordan he squeezed her elbow softly with his hand.

       For a moment Gabriel watched Stefan's retreating figure walk towards to dim rear of the building, his footsteps padding on the packed dirt floor.  Jordan said, in her soft voice, "It would be my privilege to show you to the stall, my lord."  She looked at him briefly full in the face as he nodded assent, and then turned and slowly led him towards the middle of the stable building and into a stable on the right. 

       Gabriel led Pegasus into it, pleased to see a largish, clean space, with a trough for water and a nice size wind hole with a sliding panel so it could be opened or closed.  The side walls were shoulder high on Pegasus, so she could visit with her neighbors if she had a mind to. 

       Gabriel let Pegasus' reins drop, and he leaned his forehead against hers, breathing in her smell, softly rubbing her cheek.  He closed his eyes, suddenly exhausted.

       Embarressed, Gabriel looked around to the slave girl, but she had disappeared.  Gabriel unloaded his saddle bags and placed them near the stall door, taking out only the curry brush.  He unsaddled the horse and removed the protective blanket, which was practically grimey.  Slowly, beginning with her forelock, he began to comb Pegasus.  She seemed to know that they were at journey's end, and stood quietly, as tired as he. 

       Gabriel took his time, checking carefully the various bramble scratches the horse had on her legs, and examining her hooves with great tenderness.  When he finished, he looked up to see the slave girl approaching the horse with a clean blanket, as if to throw it over her.  "Stop it," he said, much more harshly then he intended, his voice positively gravelly with fatigue.

       Jordan fell to her knees with a thud where she stood, holding the blanket in front of her like a platter.  "Forgive me, master," she said, and Gabriel heard fear in her voice for the first time.  Remorse filled him, as he quickly took the blanket from her.

       "I didn't mean to scare you," he said.  "I just don't want you to touch my horse." 

       The girl nodded, still on her knees.  "Only command me, my lord," she said, making a small gesture with her hand to indicate behind her.  Gabriel saw that while he had been tending Pegasus she had brought bales of hay, sacks of feed, and buckets of water, as well as clean grooming equipment.  Remorse again filled him as he thought of the small girl toting all these things for the comfort of his horse. 

       "Thank you," he said.  The girl rose to her feet and retreated to the entrance of the stall as Gabriel strew the hay about, filled the trough with the water which, he noticed with approval, was luke warm rather than cold, and the other with oats.  The girl had brought much too much feed for the horse, but Pegasus had the sense to stop eating when she had had enough.

       Suddenly, from the back of the stable, Gabriel heard the crack of a whip followed by the low grunt of a man.  Another whip crack, and another, and another, each followed by a groan or a whimper, smothered.  In all, there were fifteen, and then the unmistakeable murmur of Stefan's sardonic voice.  A short time later another round of whipping began, followed by a feminine voice, crying and pleading, but softly.  During it all, Jordan stood at attention, her eyes on the ground, motionless.

       Gabriel turned back to his horse and threw his arms around her neck, whether for comfort or to protect her he knew not.  Pegasus munched on her oats, oblivious.  Gabriel's eyes stung and he wished that he and Pegasus were back in the forest again, that this day had never begun, that he had never reached this place. 

       "The horse is nicely settled, nicely indeed!"  Jonquil's booming voice broke Gabriel's reverie.  Gabriel pretended to examine a spot on the horse's neck as he collected himself, then turned around to face his guide.

       Jonquil's corpulent figure almost filled the entry door to Pegasus' stable.  To the man's surprise, Gabriel shoved by him before he could get out of the way and turned to Jordan, standing nearby, still at humble attention.  He grabbed her by the shoulders, squeezing her naked flesh tight and shaking her a little.  "If anyone whips Pegasus, or touches her, I'll..."  He broke off, realizing he had nothing with which to threaten her.

       Jordan said in a gentle, soft voice that belied the hardness of her body and Gabriel's grip on it, "Nobody will, master.  She'll be fine here."   

       She looked as if she would go on, but Jonquil broke in with his loud voice, "Learning to talk to them already, good, good.  Glad to see it.  You'll fit in fine.  Horse is fine, too.  Nobody will molest her.  Plenty else to molest around here, much more interesting." 

       Gabriel looked with horror at Jonquil as he realized that, as Jonquil said, he had treated the girl as if she were his to command, his thing.  Slowly he relaxed his grip on the slave girl and removed his hands from her shoulders, backing away.  "I'm sorry," he muttered.

       Jonquil was tugging on Gabriel's sleeve in his hurry to get to supper.  Gabriel glanced back and saw Jordan, assuming her customary pose of head slightly bowed, looking at his feet. 

OT note by the author:  If you tried to email me any time in the last two years, I didn’t receive it.  My new email address is lovelyandsad (at) gmail (dot)com. 

       CHAPTER 3:  IN THE BEARER’S CHAMBERS

       Animal tried to look relaxed as he reclined in an overstuffed divan in the state room. Looking around the room, he saw that the other supplicants were as uncomfortable as he, all undoubtedly wishing, like he was, that their appointments with the Bearer had come on a night when His Eminence was in a better mood.  The Bearer was now roughly tongue-lashing a squabbling couple who came to him to determine which of them should get to keep their apartment, dog, slave, and antique oak table.  The Bearer leaned forward ferociously on his throne, gripping his scepter, spittle spraying from his mouth as he balled them out for wasting his time, for wasting the time of the other supplicants who waited to discuss matters worthy of him, for acting like slaves rather than human beings.  He paused for a breath and then looked at them both from his enormous gray eyebrows.  "Are you absolutely positive you want me to make this decision for you?" he asked.

       Interested and half amused despite his own concerns, Animal wondered if the feuders would have the sense to say no.  They stood uncertainly for a few seconds, and then the man crossed his arms about his chest and nodded.  A little slower the woman nodded as well.

       The Bearer snorted with disgust.  "Very well," he said, indicating with a toss of his chin that the scribe should take notes. "Jacques gets the dog and the apartment, Teena the cunt and the table." 

       Both of them looked at him wide eyed with horror.  "But, DeLarus," Teena shrieked, her voice verging on panic, "That's not fair."

       "SILENCE," the Bearer roared, pounding the bottom of his scepter on the floor.  "I have spoken."  He ignored the couple and glared around the room, at the dozen or so people waiting to be heard.  "If any of you have any idiotic disputes, I suggest you solve them yourselves."

       Animal again wished he could have seen the Bearer on a day when his mood did not vent quite so ragefully.  Nevertheless, as four people who had thought the better of things scurried out of the room, he had to admire the Bearer's tactics. 

       He was startled and unprepared when he heard his own name called by the scribe.  Damn it, the supplicants who had left had all been ahead of him on the roster, and he was caught off guard and in the brunt of the Bearer's ferocity.  Nevertheless he stood up with pretended nonchalance, and ambled to the hearing area.  The Bearer glowered at him.

       Animal bowed slightly from the waist, his uncharacteristically clean shirt crackling from the starch his slave had put in.  The movement was lost on the Bearer, who was flipping through the petition Animal had submitted.  At length he looked up and said, with an eyebrow raised, "You ask Riviera to cede you a wall in the Great Banquet Hall." 

       The other supplicants tittered, and Animal felt his face flush.  "I ask leave to paint a mural," and he added after a moment, "Sire."

       The Bearer leaned back in his velvet-covered throne and merely looked at Animal.  The other supplicants watched the scene, happy to be amused.  At last the Bearer said, harshly enunciating each word, "You ask to put the entire community at great inconvenience so that you can cover a wall with egg whites."

       The tittering broke into laughter, and Animal glared about him.  "I want to cover the wall with a great painting, Bearer," he said.  "The egg whites preserve the pigments."  Inwardly he raged against the cretins who surrounded him.

       

       The Bearer raised his hand for silence.  "Tell me," he said, "What will Riviera gain by giving this wall over to you, other than not being able to use its best revel room for who knows how many solstice celebrations to come?" 

       Animal realized that the Bearer was toying with him for the fun of it.  He also realized that there was nothing he could do about it.  He said, much more composedly than he felt, "Riviera gains a record of its civilization, which it will pass on to generations to come." 

       The Bearer pursed his lips. "Your petition would be best served without your sardonic tone, Supplicant."  Animal felt his face flush again.  The Bearer continued, more mildly, "I would like to preserve the record of my reign.  Tell me, what would you paint in this myoo-ral?" 

       Animal took a deep breath as he sought an answer than would convince the Bearer.  He said slowly, "I would paint scenes of our life, Bearer.  Families at the breakfast table, girls strolling in the early summer peony gardens, people picking slaves from the Exchange or attending revels; all that we do, I would capture it." 

       The Bearer drummed his fingers against his cheek.  Animal motioned to his slave girl.  "I have brought sketches with me, if you would let me demonstrate."

       The Bearer swirled his hand, indicating assent.  At a look from Animal, his slave girl, trembling violently, brought him two canvasses that had been leaning backwards against the wall.  Taking one from her, he carefully turned it around to face the Bearer.  Hearing a gasp from one of the supplicants, he allowed himself a tiny smile.  The watercolor was of the Bearer's mate, at a revel, perched on a chair, looking dreamily into a glass of sparkling wine.  Animal was grateful that it had the desired effect on at least one person in the room, as he had chosen it for the obvious reason.  The Bearer, however, gave no sign of being placated, merely continuing to drum his fingers against his cheek.  Animal gave the picture to one of the Bearer's own slaves to hold, and took the second painting from his slave.  This was one that Animal would have turned over to use the back side of the precious paper, except that it was the sort of thing the Bearer might admire.  It showed a pink and orange sunset over the fields.  When Animal made it he had hoped to paint into it the glimmer of peace that sometimes comes when viewing creation, but he had been unable to capture it on the canvass and the picture was merely a sentimental sunset. 

       The Bearer glanced at the painting.  "These pictures aren't bad," he said to Animal almost kindly.  "But," he continued, "Most people would rather have a living slave hanging on a wall than a picture."  He looked around the room and the supplicants laughed softly on cue.  "What practical value do these pictures serve?  Can you beat a slave into submission with them?"

       

       Animal felt the tip of his ears go red.  "A painting helps you see what is not in front of your nose, Bearer."

       Ignoring or unaware of the insult, the Bearer said drily, "Or they hide what is front of my nose with the smell of rotting eggs."

        In the laughter that followed Animal heard the door behind him open, and heavy footsteps came up behind him.  He ignored the distraction, concentrating on meeting the Bearer's gaze, until a man's excited, slightly breathless voice said, "Bearer, I bring the Healer come from Harmony."

       The Bearer leisurely looked at the interloper, and Animal released a short sigh of relief.  Jonquil, that fat turd, strode self-importantly forward, obviously delighted that he had a matter with which he could interrupt official proceedings.  Behind him, walking shyly, was a man about Animal's own age.  His clothes were oddly cut, and, where not covered with caked dirt, were sun-faded.  His hands and face, however, were meticulously clean, as was his hair, so black that it was almost blue and clearly self-cut without the aid of a mirror.  He was gaunt, his flesh as threadbare as his clothes.

       All this Animal's practiced eye noticed in a moment.  In the next moment he noticed the man's eyes, gray like deep fog, and flecked with yellow.  Immediately Animal began to imagine him as the subject of a painting.  A portrait, but not like he painted of the bored woman and men who posed for him for the sake of having something, anything, to do.  More like the sketches he kept in his studio, like his second, secret portrait of the Bearer's mate, towards the end of the revel, drunk and methodically torturing a stray slave, nothing but a hazy ennui showing on her face. 

       The man continued forward until he was standing near Animal, where he paused and addressed the Bearer.  "I am Gabriel," he said, in a tenor voice that sounded clear but bone-weary.  "I have answered the summons carried by your son, to try to heal the injured lass." 

       Jonquil did not care to have his thunder stolen.  He broke in excitedly, "That's right, DeLarus.  I found him at Holden's Gate, and thought it only proper to show him escort."

       The Bearer said drily, "Aye, brother, and to escape from boundary riding as well."  Jonquil sputtered for a moment and then fell silent.

       The Bearer turned to Gabriel.  He leaned his heavy frame on his tall scepter and stood heavily, and said in his deep formal voice with the almost rolling r's he reserved for ceremonial occasions, "Healer, you are most welcome here.  You have answered the summons to look at my daughter, and for that Riviera welcomes and thanks you."

       Gabriel nodded acknowledgement, and it seemed to Animal that for all the Healer's ragged appearance his dignity was equal to the Bearer's.  Looking at the tableau, Animal thought he had the subject for his painting.

 

       The Bearer sat down heavily in his throne, assisted by slaves on each side of him.  "I trust my son has not further disgraced himself," the Bearer said to the room in general.

       Gabriel took a step forward, eager to share his news.  "Your son did very well indeed, for a lad his age.  He arrived at Harmony two moons ago, ill with pneumonia, but he never wavered from his purpose.  By this time he is probably full well." 

       Animal was not the only person in the room to lift an eyebrow in surprise at the kindly respect in the healer's voice.  The Bearer, however, merely snorted.  "Foolish boy, foolish quest," he muttered, and then remembered himself. "No offense to you and your errand of mercy, sir.  But first the boy lames his sister playing too rough, and then rides off risking his own hide, and yours as well.  Girl don't need legs.  Plenty of slaves to fetch and carry for her."

       Gabriel looked around at Jonquil as if for a friend and then quickly away again.  "Indeed, sir," he said, "I do not know if I can help the child or not.  But surely if she can get her legs back she should have them."

       There was a shocked silence in the room.  Then, suddenly, the Bearer guffawed.  He laughed long and hard.  "That's the first time in a week I've been amused," he said at last, "and I thank you for that.  Hmm, hmm.  She should have her legs back indeed."

       The Healer stood with a quietness that seemed to come from his bones.  Animal felt sorry for him.  He didn't know offhand how far Harmony was from Riviera, but surely it was a great distance, and from the look of the man not an easy journey. 

       The Bearer must have had the same thought, for when he regained his composure he looked at Gabriel with some remorse.  "You must be tired," he said, "and in need of food and comfort."  He furrowed his eyebrows again, and Animal thought that it was amazing that he did not have permanent lines in his face from it being so often stretched into this position. 

       The Bearer motioned to one of his assistants, who had watched the scene while idly playing with a tassel that hung from his divan.  "The Healer will need lodging and slaves to see to his needs," he said.  "Have a runner sent to the exchange, with a note.  See if there's a decent cunt or two who know how to cook and fuck."  He looked over to Gabriel and added offhandedly, "Unless you prefer the boys, of course. It's all easily arranged."

       Gabriel opened his mouth but before sound could come out Jonquil stepped forward and said self-importantly, "He prefers neither, DeLarus.  In fact, he quite strongly disapproves of slavery and will have nothing to do with the whole thing."  Jonquil rubbed his hands together for emphasis, all too obviously enjoying being the bringer of this news.

       The Bearer sat back in his throne, perplexed, and drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair.  "Hmm, hmm, of course," he said.  "Harmony, rebels, all that."

       Gabriel interrupted him.  "Sir, my errand is really the lass.  Perhaps if I could look in on her ..."

       The Bearer brushed him off.  "The girl is asleep, sir," he said.  "Still early for us, of course, but the children sleep all night so that they can squabble all day."  He thought for another minute.  "Best thing to do is to get you settled.  Tomorrow, or the next day, is plenty of time to look in on Trya.  She's not getting any better, but no worse either.  Day or two makes no difference."  He turned to Jonquil.  "You've cared for him thus far, Brother.  Take him home with you.  You've enough slaves to handle the task."

       Jonquil grimaced and turned red to the top of his bald head, raising his hands to ward off the suggestion. "Oh, no, DeLarus.  Makes no sense at all.  None at all.  My quarters are on the other side of the mansion from yours.  And the lad's got a horse he wants to visit, in the main stables. Much too far from there. Oh, no, not me."  Gabriel looked relieved to learn that parting company would be no more unpleasant to Jonquil than to himself.

       

       The Bearer frowned.  "He should stay with me, I suppose," he said mostly to himself.  "But I've eight brats running around, and dozens of slaves, and no room to think in my quarters as it is.  We need visitors more often.  No procedures in place."  He looked around the room at the various supplicants, who each in turn dropped their eyes.  At last the Bearer's baleful gaze landed on Animal.  They were both struck with the same thought. 

       "Well, Painter," the Bearer said gruffly, "You ask Riviera to inconvenience itself by giving over to you its best revel room.  What do you offer it in return?" 

       Animal swallowed, took a deep breath, and turned to the healer.  "There's an empty suite in my quad," he said, not quite managing to keep all the sourness out of his voice.  "It is near to the Bearer's quarters, and the front stables."  Seeing the Healer biting the inside of his cheeks, he added, gruffly, "You are most welcome." 

       The Bearer raised an eyebrow and nodded approvingly. "Nicely said, Painter," he said.  "I'm glad to see you've got some community spirit."  He stroked his chin, and added, "Tell me, how do you live?"

       Animal indicated the slave girl who had handed him the paintings a few minutes earlier, and now stood quietly except for the rattling of her knees. "I've had this cunt for nigh on two months now.  She is well-trained and obedient."

       As Animal spoke, the slave girl fell to her knees and put her forehead on the floor.  Her shaking knees gave way to great tremors throughout her body.  The Bearer looked down at her.  "Stand up, cunt. I want to see you." 

       In a clumsy movement the slave girl stood.  Animal saw that her face was positively green, and wondered if she might not throw up.  Serve the Bearer right to have to smell it for days to come. 

       "Hands behind your neck, and turn around slowly," the Bearer commanded the slave.  Animal rarely had his slaves assume the standard position, and she hesitated a moment before obeying.  She turned around slowly, her knees knocking so badly that she nearly lost her balance.  Animal was reminded of the day she had first come to serve him.  She was as frightened as today, but with only average patience on his part she had calmed down.  She was a good housekeeper, nice in bed, and a better than usual cook.  Truth be told, he realized with surprise, he was fond of her.

       When the slave had completed a full circle for the Bearer she again fell to her hands and knees, her forehead on the ground, still shaking.

       The Bearer said suspiciously to Animal, "The creature is practically unmarked."

         

       "I don't keep slaves who require beating," he responded, a little defensively. "She behaves well and I don't punish her."

       The Bearer tsked.  "A pansy, are you?" he said.  He turned to the prostrate figure before him.  "I didn't tell you to move," he said, annoyed.  "Stand up and speak to me."

       The girl tried to stand but her knees gave way and she would have fallen if Animal had not stepped forward to steady her.  "A cunt who cannot stand on her own two feet can scarcely take care of you, much less the erstwhile healer," the Bearer remarked.

       Animal tried to keep the annoyance out of his voice.  "You've frightened her," he said, stating the obvious.  He added, after a moment's hesitation, "But if you prefer, I will trade her in."  Animal thought he heard the cunt make a guttural sound in her throat, almost a protest.  He was a lenient master.  All of his cunts hated to leave him.  He never kept them for more than a few months, on the theory that if they had not yet started to take advantage of his kindly nature they surely would soon.

       The Bearer ignored Animal.  "Slave, look at me," he said.  The girl slowly raised her eyes, filled with tears and fear, to his.  "How does your master call you?"

       In a small voice, strained with tears, she stammered, "Please, master, he calls me Rose." 

       The Bearer smirked a little and leaned back in his chair, evidently enjoying himself.  "Your master says he doesn't beat you," he said.  "Is that true?"

       Rose's knees buckled slightly, but she caught herself.  Rescuing her from the trap the Bearer had laid, Animal said, "I have beaten Rose occasionally, when she has deserved it. Lately she has been good."

       The Bearer looked annoyed. "My dear sir, if you can't allow your slave to stand by herself, at least allow her to answer for herself."  He turned back to Rose, and sternly ordered, "Turn and look at Master Gabriel." 

       Rose turned slowly to the stranger, and Animal saw that he gave the slave a tiny encouraging smile with the side of his mouth that was turned away from the Bearer.

       The Bearer continued, "Your master is kind, and Master Gabriel is a rebel who does not believe in slavery."  If Rose understood this, she gave no sign.  "But I am not kind, and I do believe in slavery." His voice was deep and stern. "Master Gabriel is a visitor here, and an honored guest.  You show your master every attention, accord him every courtesy, and obey his every whim, do you not?"

       Rose responded in a soft, quavering voice, "I try, my lord."

       The Bearer nodded.  "Well said, cunt.  All you do for your master, you must do ten times as well for Master Gabriel."  Animal fought the annoyance he suddenly felt.  "Repeat that back to me."

       Rose stammered, "All I do for my master, I must do ten times as well for Master Gabriel."  Her voice went up an octave towards the end, as Animal accidently painfully tightened his grip on her arm. 

       The Bearer continued, "Between your kind master and the rebel, you may think you can cut corners.  But I will be watching you, and hearing about you, and I will punish you if you do not obey.  Do you understand?"

       Rose managed to answer in a hoarse whisper, "Yes, my lord."

       The Bearer lowered his eyebrows at her, causing her to tremble even more.  "I am going to give you a small taste of my punishment now, as you have no doubt forgotten the kiss of the lash of late."  He turned to Animal.   "I assume your master does not dispute my jurisdiction over you?"  Animal gave a half shrug to indicate his assent, keeping his face carefully blank.   

       The Bearer leaned over to one of his attendants and whispered in his ear. The attendant strode out the back entrance of the throne room, and returned almost immediately with a largish tasseled pillow, covered with maroon velvet.  He placed it in front of Rose and said to her, "Lay your head on it."  Animal let go of the slave who, in her haste to obey, dove for the pillow and lay full out on the floor, her head on top of the pillow and her arms encircling it.  The attendant removed a long, narrow whip that was coiled on his belt.  He stood over the prostrate girl, his muscles rippling, and looked at the Bearer, who nodded at him.

       The attendant raised his arm and brought the whip down with a thunderous clap, leaving a huge red welt from Rose's left buttock to her right shoulderblade.  She shrieked through closed lips and clutched the pillow convulsively.  "One," the attendant said calmly.

       He raised his arm again and brought the whip crashing down, this time from one side of Rose's back to another.  Rose sobbed.  "Please," she cried, "please."  She was bleeding where the two welts crossed.

       "Two," the attendant said.  He moved around so that he was standing over Rose's shoulders, facing her feet.  "Spread your legs wider," he ordered. Rose complied in an instant.  The whip came down vertically across her buttock, curling around her thigh.  Rose bit the pillow to stifle her scream.

       "Three," the attendant said.

       As he raised his arm for another stroke, the Bearer stopped him. "That's enough," he said.  "The cunt has tender skin, and this is just a warning.  She must be able to care for our guest." He turned to Gabriel.  "You must consider this slave to be yours in all things."

CHAPTER 4:  TO ANIMAL’S LIVING QUARTERS

       Gabriel was too exhausted to pay much attention to the arrangements made in the throne room.  He vaguely understood from Jonquil that his baggage, which had been toted by a slave from the stables, would be delivered immediately to Animal's quarters. Gabriel carried only his medicine sack, slung across his shoulder.  He numbly followed Animal and the stumbling slave-girl Rose from the throne room.  Rose's back leaked blood in the places where the whip-marks crossed, and he wondered that she did not go into shock.  The clinical voice within him reported that the bleeding was not altogether bad, as it would save the cuts from becoming infected by her hair, which hung below her shoulders. 

       As they exited the throne room through the grand doorway, Animal stood formally aside and gestured him to proceed.  They went into a foyer, much larger than the throne room itself, and several people called out casual greetings to Animal, which he ignored.  He crossed the room with a gait that was brisk despite a studied laziness, opened a door and went through it, evidently expecting that both Rose and Gabriel would follow automatically. 

       When they crossed the threshold  Animal was already several feet ahead of them, striding quickly down a narrow, poorly lit corridor, pretense of laziness gone.  Rose stumbled.  She straightened up immediately but then stumbled again, this time falling and landing on her right knee with a quiet whimper.  Animal strode ahead, oblivious.  "Wait," Gabriel shouted after him, as he hurried towards the girl who was struggling to her feet again. Animal stopped and turned around. 

       Gabriel almost reached out to support Rose, but he stopped himself, looking at the man who in a less than enthusiastic way had offered him hospitality.  Animal was lanky and unkempt, with brown hair that straggled well past his shoulders and a beard that had been combed but not trimmed. He crossed his long, thin arms and tapped his foot, waiting for Gabriel to say why he had interrupted their progress.

       Gabriel took a deep breath.  He had used this method to try to calm himself so many times in the last hours that it was a wonder he was not hyperventilating, he thought.  He took another breath, slower, and said carefully, "The Bearer said I was to consider her mine," indicating the girl.  Animal nodded, his sour frown becoming more pronounced.  Gabriel continued, softly, as he might speak to an awakening watch dog, "If I look to her wounds, can I have your word then that you’ll not punish her for it?"

       Animal's sour frown slowly transformed into an even sourer grin.  "Weren't you paying attention back there, Healer?" His lips formed slowly around each word, as if Gabriel were simple. "I'm a pansy.  I don't beat my slaves enough.  That's why the Bearer took it upon himself to do it." 

       Gabriel looked uncertainly from Animal to Rose and back again.  Rose struggled to her feet and stumbled over to Animal, where she fell to her knees and rested on her haunches, her head down.  "Forgive me, master," she said in a low, frightened voice.

       To Gabriel's surprise, Animal lowered himself down until he was at the same level as Rose.  Almost tenderly he scooped the slave's hair from her back and pulled it over her right shoulder, removing it from contact with the whip marks.  "You're not hurt," he said with a gruffness belied by his actions.  "Get up and walk before I give you a real punishment."   

       Rose immediately stood up.  She swayed uncertainly.  Animal stood up and put out his arm, which she grasped.  "Okay, now,"  Animal said, and he began walking down the corridor, Rose clinging to him.  Gabriel followed a few feet behind, feeling lost and foolish.  Animal looked over his shoulder and said, in his sour voice, "The quarters aren't far.  You can numb her wounds to your heart's content there."  

       The corridor was long and narrow and lit only by a few scattered lanterns.  They passed several closed doors and a few hallways leading off to the right and left.  Some of the doorways had piles of rubbish near them. 

       The hallway ended at a door like the one they had originally entered.  The trio went through it and Gabriel found himself in a cavernous room.  He looked to his left.  A jolt of terror slashed through his body.  Three ghosts were crossing the room.  One of them stopped suddenly and Gabriel realized with foolish relief that he was looking at his own reflection.  The entire wall to his right, except for a set of doors, was a huge picture window, made into a ghoulish mirror by the darkness outside. His own image seemed to be all lines and shadows. 

       Animal, Rose still on his arm, turned back to Gabriel.  "Entrance hall," he informed the healer sourly.  He stalked towards a hallway, grander than the one they had just left, opposite the window wall.  Gabriel again followed behind.  He turned now and again in what seemed a maze, but always in a broad, well-lit, clean corridor.  A few slaves scurried by on solitary errands, keeping their heads carefully lowered as they passed. 

       Animal stopped before a door, fumbled for a key, and opened it.  With uncharacteristic politeness, he stood aside and motioned Gabriel to precede him. 

       Gabriel entered into a meticulously clean living area furnished with an overstuffed couch and a couple of chairs and footstools.  Behind it was a dining area, separated by a counter from a small kitchen.  The back wall, like the entrance hall, was made entirely of a picture window except for a door in its center. 

       Rose was lighting lamps throughout the room.  As she did so, Gabriel's attention was drawn to the wall to his right.  It was covered with a huge painting directly on the wall, a painting which exactly captured the great lawn Gabriel had seen on the way to the stable earlier that day.  Each tree was perfectly rendered and swaying in the breeze; each person's thoughts were revealed through their face or body position.  A woman reclined in relaxation; a man tiredly but happily threw a ball to a young girl; an older woman admired a rose bush, each thorn carefully drawn.  Gabriel's attention was particularly caught by a slave who pushed a lawnmower, his biceps hard and gleaming with sweat, his face showing focus and pride and fear. 

       Animal looked at him looking at the painting, the tiniest sour smile on the painter's lips.  He stood motionless, merely watching.  At last Gabriel looked over to Animal, and it seemed to him that in that instant, in this hellish land, he knew Animal's heart and all that was in it, and they passed from strangers to brothers.

CHAPTER 5:  HEALING ROSE

       As he had promised, Animal let Gabriel tend to Rose's wounds that night. At Gabriel's direction Rose lay nervously on the couch, trembling.  Just as Animal had intimated, her cuts were not as deep nor nearly as dangerous as Gabriel had thought, and, as the Bearer had remarked, except for same faded scars her skin was unmarked.

       

       "I'll need clean cotton cloth," he said.  Animal looked at him blankly for a minute, then gave a flashing grin and hastily strode through a door opposite the entrance they had come in.  When he left, Rose shrunk down to even an even smaller size and looked at Gabriel fearfully.  Gabriel tried to reach for words that might comfort her, but could think only of what he had said to Griley a lifetime ago, and regretted.

       Animal came back into the room carrying three folded tunics before him as if they were trays. He thrust them at Gabriel, and stood back gruffly. 

       The shirts looked clean enough, although certainly not sterile.  Gabriel set aside one dyed a deep purple with a concoction he could not guess, and tore the white one and the cream-colored one into strips with a practiced hand.  At each tear of the cloth Rose gave a stifled gasp.

       When he had made the bandages, Gabriel looked at Rose's back dispassionately.  The cuts had mostly clotted already, and the bleeding had slowed to an ooze.  Bandages and salve for a day or so would stop any infection, and then fresh air would do the rest.

       

       Gabriel sat on the floor next to the couch and slowly raised an ointment-soaked bandage to put on the deepest cut.  Rose breathed sharply and closed her eyes.  "I won't hurt you, Rose," Gabriel said to her softly, hoping again he would not regret these words.  He could feel Animal's heavy presence behind him. Rose opened her eyes, looked at Gabriel fleetingly, and gave him a smile so tiny Gabriel wondered if he had imagined it. Carefully he lay the bandages on her back.  The blood oozed through the first layer but not the second. 

       

       He turned to Animal, who still hovered beside him.  "Can you bring a cup of hot water?" he requested.  Animal looked confused and a little offended.  Rose moved as if she would get up, and Gabriel quickly put a warning hand on her shoulder, holding her down.  "You need to lay still, or you'll open the wounds and spoil my pretty bandages," he said.  For an instant Rose looked as if he had told her he was made of goat cheese, and then her face was carefully blank again.  

       Animal clanged and banged in the kitchen area, cursing more than once, but eventually carried from there, carefully, as if it were precious, a mug of hot water.  Gabriel took it with barely a nod of thanks, fishing through his medicine pouch for the proper herbs.  The miniscule amount of relaxants Gabriel put in the tea he concocted for Rose had a stronger effect on her than he expected, and she fell fast asleep on the couch a few minutes after fearfully sipping it down. 

       Animal looked at Rose's sleeping figure bemusedly, then shrugged and pressed a button by the door to the hallway.  A runner appeared a few minutes later, and Animal told him to bring supper. 

       When the runner brought the food, a savory meat stew that made Gabriel's mouth water, Animal unceremoniously put it on the table and banged around in the kitchen, looking for plates and utensils.  He brought them in and sat down at the table with another sour look to Gabriel.  Gabriel felt suddenly uncouth and embarrassed by his filthy clothes.  Animal, oblivious, piled  more meat on Gabriel's plate than he had ever seen not on a feast day, and a goodly helping of tender broccoli and cauliflower and baby potatoes. 

       Gabriel was suddenly ravenous.  However, after a few forkfuls he found it increasingly difficult to lift his fork or to keep his eyes open.  Animal, who had been eating unconcernedly, gave a soft snort when he looked up and saw Gabriel's chin in his chest.  He carried Rose from the couch to his bed, and helped Gabriel to the couch.  It took him a while to find a blanket for Gabriel but when his task done, he sat down again and finished his meal. 

CHAPTER 6:  TWO CONVERSATIONS

       Rose woke early the next morning, and scared.  She knew there was something she had been supposed to do the night before, and she had not done it.  What it was she could not recall, until she sat up and felt the odd numbness on her back where the bandages were.  Then it all came flooding back to her: the beating by the Bearer, the Bearer's order to take care of the strange new master who had been kind to her, and falling asleep on the couch before she had done any of the tasks she should have done.  Animal slept beside her, snoring softly, and she gave another start when she realized that she had not satisfied him last night. 

       She sat miserably on the edge of the bed, torn between waiting for Animal to wake to beg his forgiveness, or going to wait on the new master and to beg his forgiveness.  She heard a soft clang from the kitchen, and water running.  She turned and looked desperately at the sleeping figure beside her.  She knew that, as he had missed first light already, he might sleep for hours more. 

       Trembling, Rose opened the bedroom door quietly and peeked out.  With a gasp she saw that the new master was in the kitchen cubicle, washing dishes!  She started towards him, turned back and quietly closed the bedroom door, then almost ran across the living room and skidded to a stop on her knees in the kitchen doorway.  "Forgive me, master," she said in a voice so soft Gabriel barely heard her.

       He turned to her with a funny, apologetic smile.  "I hope I didn't wake you," he said, and turned back to finish the dish he was washing.  He had awoken that morning still heartsick from the events of the day before but also amazingly refreshed from having slept with a safe roof over his head and no need to keep an ear cocked for marauding raccoons and worse.  Without compunction he had raided the icebox of the food Animal had evidently dumped there the night before, on the plates they ate off.  Further, he was certain he remembered the way to the main entranceway, from where he could easily find the stable and Pegasus.

       "Please, master," Rose pleaded.  She started to cry, more certain than ever of punishment if a master was doing her own work.

       Gabriel turned to her again, distressed.  “Please don't cry," he asked, in the most gentle voice he could muster.

       Rose looked down, biting her lip.  His kind tone scared her more than his weird actions.  Masters were sometimes eccentric or lazy, like Animal.  That was dangerous but you could get used to it.  But kindness was always a mindgame.  A tear rolled down to the tip of Rose's nose and dropped with a tiny splotch to the floor.  She remained motionless.

       Gabriel watched her for a time, matching his breath to hers. Then he said, in a soft, conversational voice, "I never saw a faucet like this one, where endless hot water comes out."  This got Rose's attention, and she looked up at him, puzzled.  "Jonquil couldn't tell me yesterday about how anything around here works.  It seems like magic to me." 

       Rose took a deep breath, and said, "It comes from pipes from a boiler room, Master."  When Gabriel waited, she added, "The boiler broke once when I worked in the southern wing.  There was no hot water for two weeks.  Nobody knew how to fix it." 

       Rose turned bright red, as if embarrassed by the sound of her own voice.  Gabriel pretended he didn't notice, and asked, with genuine interest, "How does the boiler make the water hot?"

       Rose thought for a minute.  "My mistress brought me to see the public torturing after the boiler was fixed.  I think the Bearer ordered that all the houseslaves in that wing attend.  I remember the torturer saying the slaves were supposed to tend the fires which heated the water."  She looked at Gabriel almost angrily before she blankened her face. 

       Gabriel had seen the look.  "It wasn't their fault, Rose," he said softly.  Rose prostrated herself, her characteristic fear returning. 

       Gabriel mentally kicked himself for going too fast.  He tried to save the situation.  "That beautiful shower I took this morning," he said, "Does that water come from the same place?"

       Rose trembled.  Without looking up, she said, "Forgive me, Master. I don't know." 

       Gabriel leaned back against the counter, watching her.  He tried to think of a topic of conversation that would put her at ease, but seeing her taut posture he realized that he had pushed as far as she would go for now.  He chewed on his lip, wishing for a normal conversation with a friend.

       The thought made him remember Pegasus.  Was she as lonely, he wondered?  He would go and see her, and then the lass.  Quietly he put in the cabinet the dish he had been holding.  He turned briskly towards the doorway and almost tripped over Rose, still prostrate.  Unsure what else to do, he stepped over her.  Rose emitted a high whimper, which stopped when no blow landed.  Fearing that she would remain statue-still for hours if he said nothing, he told her that he was going to the stables.  Rose looked up and nodded, but said nothing, her cheeks wet with tears.

***

       It was not for nothing that Gabriel had spent so much of his youth wandering outside of Harmony's borders, seeking healing herbs.  The elders of Harmony had approved him for this journey partly because of his well-known woodsense, believing that he among all the young healers would not get lost on the way to Riviera, following a path scarcely used for generations.  Yet he found himself confused by the odd angles at which  the indoor corridors met, with neither sun nor breeze to guide him

       This early in the day only a few slaves were about.  He watched them go by, fearfully making obeisance, before he stopped one who, like Rose, was not heavily marked, and asked him the direction to the entrance hall. If the man thought it was an odd question he gave no sign, but answered courteously and clearly, on his knees, his eyes down.  Gabriel was quite close.

       The picture window faced south, and through it Gabriel saw the Lawn, still sparkling with dew, empty except for a few groundskeepers cleaning litter.  Gabriel pushed open the door, descended the steps of the grand stairway, and walked hurriedly across the grass towards the stable.  He wondered with a sudden pang whether these barbarians had mistreated his horse in the handful of hours since he had left her.  He remembered the pixie slave girl's face--what was her name?  Jordan--and her quiet, gentle voice promising the horse would be fine.  Despite common sense, he was calmed.

       Unlike the mansion, the stable was bustling when he arrived.  A little shyly, Gabriel peered into the third stable before entering it.  Throughout its length, slaves were grooming horses.  As he passed them, they nodded respectfully.  Jordan was currying a speckled white mare, talking softly to it.  When she saw Gabriel, she stepped just more than kicking distance away from the mare and fell gracefully to her knees, the rest of her body remaining firmly erect.  "Can I serve you, Master?" she asked.

       The ends of Jordan's flyaway hair wisped into her face as she kneeled perfectly still.  Unlike every other slave Gabriel had spoken with, Jordan neither shook nor trembled.  Suddenly he heard a sound as familiar to him as his own breathing:  Pegasus' whicker.  Swiftly stepping around the kneeling girl, Gabriel practically ran into his horse's stall.  Pegasus, as unused to being away from her friend as the reverse, gave a snort and a prance.  Gabriel crossed the few steps to the horse in a heartbeat and threw his arms around her neck, feeling that it had been years instead of hours since he had last seen her.

       A man cleared his throat.  Turning quickly, Gabriel saw Stefan in the doorway, a sardonic grin on his face.  "I see we managed not to kill your horse overnight," he said.

       Gabriel blushed, realizing that his comment to Jordan the night before must have gotten back to the stable's boss.  Stefan seemed to enjoy his discomfiture.  Lazily he said, "Hope you'll let the horse rest up a bit before riding her over tarnation."

       Gabriel bit down annoyance.  He no more needed advice on how to care for his own horse than he did on how to tie his shoes.  Seeing his reaction, Stefan looked, if possible, more smug than before.  "No insult intended," he drawled.

       "You have a pasture?" Gabriel asked coldly. 

       Stefan nodded.  "The cunt can show you which field," he said, indicating Jordan, who had stolen up behind her master and stood nearby, attentive.

       In a deliberate attempt to cut Stefan, Gabriel turned his back towards him and began currying Pegasus.  He felt warmth beside him, and turned, annoyed that the man had come back to laugh some more.  But it was Jordan, holding a clean curry brush in her hand.  Gabriel took it.  "Thank you," he said. 

       "Do all your horses have a jaw like that, Master?" Jordan asked in a shy, interested voice.

       Automatically Gabriel replied, "The shape comes from her sire, a mustang."  He suddenly realized that Stefan had asked him the same question the day before, and looked at the girl quizzically.  She, thinking she had offended, looked down and fell to her knees, where she awaited her punishment with seeming calm. 

       "Please don't do that," Gabriel said quietly.

       "Sir?"

       "Don't fear that I'll hurt you.  I wouldn't..."  Gabriel faltered.  He had been about to say that he wouldn't even know how, but he remembered his threat to this same slave girl the night before.  Of course he would know how.  How hard is it to punch a naked, defenseless child, or to use a whip on one? 

       "I know you wouldn't, Master," Jordan said softly.

       "You believe me?" Gabriel asked, so incredulous that tears stung his eyes.

       Jordan smiled up at him, and looked over at Pegasus.  "A cruel man couldn't train a horse like this," she said simply.

       "Maybe I didn't train him," he said perversely.

       Jordan just smiled.  "Shall I show you the pasture?" she asked.

       Gabriel nodded assent and put a harness on Pegasus.  As they exited the stable, Gabriel was aware that the slaves gave him covert glances, although whenever he looked straight at them they looked down and fell to their knees.  Several of them were badly whipped on their backsides, and all, including Jordan, had layers upon layers of scars like cobwebs.  None of her scars were infected though.  Gabriel shook the thought away, disgusted that he had come to so easily distinguish between gradations of torture.

       The sun was well up as they exited the stable.  Jordan walked swiftly in a direction leading away from the mansion, ignoring one or two fenced in pastures the size of a few acres, and stopping at the third.  A few horses grazed lazily.  Gabriel looked at them with trepidation, wondering how Pegasus would fit into their structure. 

       Jordan whistled low and steady, and one of the horses, a light tan mare, ambled over to her.  "This is Mercy," Jordan explained to Gabriel.  "She has the stall next to Pegasus.  They made friends last night."  To prove her right, the two horses touched noses.  Jordan giggled.  "Everyone loves Mercy," she said, and she affectionately and unselfconsciously kissed the mare's nose.  Mercy lay her head upon the girl's shoulder, and snorted.

       Gabriel left the pasture reluctantly, still nervous about leaving Pegasus behind and not wanting to go back to the mansion and the ugliness there.  He reminded himself sternly that he came to try to heal the Bearer's daughter.

       "Can I do anything for you, Master?" Jordan asked so kindly that Gabriel felt ashamed for feeling sorry for himself.  She added, "Master Stefan says you’ve been on your own for a long time.”

       When Gabriel merely looked at her, she added, “Before I came to the stables I was fully trained.  Whatever your taste.   Deep throat, buttfucking. I can do whatever you like. "

       Gabriel stopped her, touching her arm until she looked at him.  "I wouldn't ask you to do any of those things, Jordan," he said.

       She looked down.  “Plain sex,” she said, in a low voice.

       Gabriel looked at her silently.  "I told you I wouldn't hurt you, Jordan," he said.  "I wouldn't rape you either." 

       Jordan looked relieved, and puzzled.  "You're very kind, Sir," she said.  "Like Master Stefan."

       Gabriel frowned at being compared to the sardonic stable master.  "Is he kind?" he asked.

       "Oh, yes," Jordan said, her face lighting up.  "He is the kind of master you always hope for."

       "Last night I heard him whipping one of your friends," Gabriel said slowly.  "And by the scars on your back I'm sure he beats you as well."

       Jordan shrugged as if it was of no matter.  "He whips us when we deserve it," she said, "and he has the lottery, but he isn't cruel."

       "The lottery?" Gabriel asked.

       Jordan nodded.  "Every night we gather in the back of our building.  He whips those of us who deserve it according to what we have done.  And then he pulls a name out of a hat, and that person gets fifteen strokes."  Noting how shocked Gabriel looked, she added, "To keep us obedient, and remind us that no matter how free we feel, we must obey."

       Gabriel shook his head and sighed.  "Doesn't it hurt?" he asked. 

       "It does," Jordan said.  "One time my name was called in lottery five days running.  But they're good clean strokes.  It's just whipping, not torture," she added.

       They were approaching the stable building.  The yard was still full of slaves scurrying back and forth, but few masters.  Jordan turned to Gabriel again, repeating her words of last night.  "Pegasus will be fine.  You'll see."

       "Thank you," Gabriel whispered, his eyes stinging with tears at her kindness again, as he turned heavily to return to the mansion.

Two parts of the mansion

       Gabriel found his way back to Animal's suite, surprised again that the huge mansion seemed so empty of activity.  In the entrance hall, with the light streaming through the window, he saw that the whitewash on the walls and ceiling was badly peeling, and cracks seemed to go through the paint and into the walls themselves.

       Animal was eating breakfast when Gabriel entered the suite, steaming vegetable omelets that made Gabriel's mouth water despite his own breakfast.  Animal waved with his fork, his mouth too full to speak.  He swallowed ostentatiously.  "I’ll call for Rose if you want some," he said after wiping his mouth on his sleeve.  "She said you ate leftovers this morning."  He looked amused.  "Not her fault she overslept," he added, a trifle defensively.  "Those drugs you gave her knocked her out cold."

       "I know," Gabriel said nervously. He added, "I thought I'd see about the lass before the day gets too old."

       "The lass?"  Animal asked, puzzled.  Then he laughed.  "The Bearer's daughter.  Trust me, my friend, the Bearer will not welcome you to his quarters before high noon.  He's an old, fat man, and he needs his rest." 

       Gabriel smiled at Animal's characterization, although he was taken aback by his lack of respect.

       "Tell you what," Animal continued.  "I'll show you the mural walls you've bought me with your timely arrival." 

       “A wall?” Gabriel said, puzzled.  “I heard you discussing something about a room – in trade for your hospitality.”

       Animal nodded.  “I forgot that you missed the Bearer’s grand humiliation of me,” he said sourly.  “It’s not the room I want, but its wall for painting.  I’ll explain it all if you’ll come.” Although his tone was again desultory, he looked so hopeful that Gabriel was sure the man would be crushed if he refused.  He nodded. 

      Animal jumped up. "I bet Rose would like to see it, too," he said.  "You don't mind, do you?"  Without waiting for a reply, he went out the sliding glass door leading to a courtyard behind the living area and whistled shrilly. Rose appeared at once from an identical sliding glass door across the courtyard to the right, ran nimbly to her master, and fell to her knees.

       "Enough scrubbing!" Animal said. "We visit the revel hall!"

       Rose said in her small voice, "The suite is not ready, my lord."

       Animal laughed expansively.  "Gabriel doesn't mind," he said with great assurance.  "Probably prefer to clean it himself."  He glared at Gabriel. "Anyway, plenty of time for that when it's not morning light."  Without looking to see if either the slave girl or the man were following, Animal strode to the front door and down the corridor.  The other two hastened to catch up.

       Animal continued his quick pace, once in a while glancing back at Gabriel, the corners of his mouth, practically hidden by his unkempt beard and mustache, twitching in what Gabriel understood to be enthusiasm.  He walked so fast that the corridors went by as a blur for Gabriel, and he wondered if he would be able to find his way back without help. Unlike the night before, when Animal had followed service hallways from the Bearer's State Room to his own suite, today he kept to the main corridors.  For the third time that morning, Gabriel was struck by how empty they were.

       Animal entered a foyer similar to the entrance hallway, and came to a halt before a huge set of ornately carved wooden doors that were nearly two stories high.  He reverently touched one of the carvings on the door, a squatting gargoyle glaring out hostilely.  Animal turned to Gabriel.  "Can your carvers in Harmony make such things?"

       Gabriel stepped forward to examine the gargoyle more closely, and as he did so the gargoyle's eyes seemed to follow him, glittering.  With a forefinger he touched the creature's fur, in which every hair seemed outlined against the wood.   He answered slowly, "We have a woman, Tenanine, a furniture maker, who is known for her fine woodwork, so that a chest of drawers from her is considered a handsome joining present.  She decorates them with carvings – but I don’t think she could do anything near to this creature."

       Animal sighed.  "Then the art is lost forever," he said.  "No one in Riviera can match this ancient, either."  He pushed open the door, which gave a hideous groan, as if the hinges had not been oiled for an age or more.

       The room inside was enormous, with parquet floors covered here and there with groups of tables and chairs.  It jutted out like a peninsula onto the great lawn, and all three of those walls had large windows spaced throughout There were skylights in the ceiling.  Animal walked to the middle of the room and turned around slowly, lost in thought, his companions forgotten.  Gabriel followed him slowly, not anxious to disturb his reverie.

       "There," said Animal suddenly, jabbing his finger towards the middle of the far wall, "That’s where it will begin.  The first focal point will be just opposite the main door, capturing revelers as they enter.  Their eyes will be drawn by the lines from one scene to the next, inevitably, until the whole cycle is before them and they take it in as a whole."  Suddenly he laughed with pleasure.

       "But what will you paint?" Gabriel asked, mystified.

       Animal threw  his arms wide.  "What will I paint?   Everything!  The lifecycle will be on this wall.  Birth, here," and he pointed again opposite  the center wall, twirling his arm once more.  "Infancy, childhood, youth, all the way into dotage and death.  I told the Bearer, how we live will be recorded here.  The generations will know us!"  He turned suddenly to Gabriel.  "Tell me," he said, "Do your painters have permanent pigments, or do they fade after a few years?"

       Gabriel said uncertainly, "I have a picture of my grandfather as a young man, but it is faded and cracked."

       "Bah!" Animal replied.  "So much is lost." He shrugged.  "My mural will be so valued that youngsters will retouch it, year after year, just to learn the craft."  Then he laughed, sourly, so that Gabriel could not tell if he had spoken in jest. 

       While Gabriel and Animal were talking, Rose had walked to the wall where Animal indicated his mural would be, and touched it softly with her fingertip.  The two men walked towards her and she looked up.  "It's the same as the canvas you've been using, master," she said softly. 

       "Of course it is!" Animal boomed.  "This is what I've been practicing for!" 

       "When do you start?" Gabriel asked.

       Animal looked at him as if he were a stupid child. "Start?" he said.  "I just did."  He laughed again, less sourly than usual, and pulled a measuring tape out of a pocket Gabriel would have guessed was too threadbare to hold anything.  Yet, impossibly, from another pocket came a pad of paper and a sharp pencil. 

       Animal put both Gabriel and Rose to work, measuring from wall to wall, and window to window.  He sent Rose to fetch a ladder so he could measure floor to ceiling as well.  With a frown he looked down.  "I'll have to have the floor sanded and repolished before I begin," he said, mostly to himself.  "Otherwise some matron will insist on doing it in the middle of the mural for some solstice celebration.  Have to supervise the slaves myself or it'll never get done."  He frowned, and went back to his measurements.

       In the midst of his activity Animal stopped short.  "Well, Healer," he said, "It's past the noon hour and the light too bright for creativity.  Shall I take you to the Bearer's quarters, where you can face your own destiny?" He smiled his usual sour smile.

       Gabriel nodded, although his heart dropped at the thought that he would have to see the Bearer again along with his daughter.  They turned to leave.  Rose suddenly dropped to her knees before Animal.  "What is it?" he asked her, gruffly.

       "Master... this slave is happy for you."  She looked at the floor, her face red.

       Animal took her hand and raised her from the ground.  He growled, "You'll regret it enough when you have to help me grind the pigments," but he smiled at her at the same time.

****

       The Bearer's quarters were barely controlled chaos.  A baby squalled in the arms of a slave who ineffectually begged him to quiet; a couple of children played tag with a tawny-coated dog; and the woman in the picture Animal had shown the Bearer was whipping a kneeling slave on the chest, daring him to beg for mercy.  Rose instinctively stepped closer to Animal, and Gabriel wished that there was a place he could seek shelter as well.

       Animal, taking a deep breath, approached the Bearer's mate and waited politely until she had finished her beating.  "Lady Yesnid," he said.

       Winded, she looked up and frowned at Animal.  "You brought the Healer?" she asked curtly.

       Animal nodded.  "As you see," he said, and beckoned Gabriel forward. 

       The woman gave him a once-over.  "Animal couldn't supply you with a change of clothes?" she asked, and Gabriel realized with dismay that he was still wearing his riding clothes, which he had thrown on that morning when he went to the stables.  He blushed.

       The woman laughed, prettily.  "No matter.  My husband warned me you looked a sight."  She  tilted her head, coquettishly.  "Can you do anything for a horrible wart on my wrist?" she asked.

       Gabriel said, as politely as he could, "Perhaps, ma'am.  But first could I meet the young lady?"

       Yesnid laughed again.  "My husband spoke truth about you," she said.   With a toss of her head, she indicated a divan across the room.  "That's Carmen," she said.

       As Gabriel walked to where Yesnid had indicated, he saw a girl of about 16, smearing with a wooden stick what appeared to be honey into the crotch of a slave woman, who whimpered softly.  When Gabriel approached, the girl looked up with a pretty smile.  "Hello," she said.

       "Hello," Gabriel replied.

       "Are you my Healer?" the girl demanded.

       "I am," said Gabriel.

       "Just a minute," she said.  She pursed her lips and gave a long, low whistle, and the tawny dog that had been playing with the other children bounded over to her.  Carmen grabbed the dog's muzzle and led it into the slave woman's crotch.  The slave whimpered.  Carmen laughed.  "She hates that," she told Gabriel confidingly.

       "Then why do you do it?" Gabriel asked.

       Carmen looked taken aback by the question, like one of Gabriel's young cousins might have looked if he posed a math problem too difficult for them. Then she answered triumphantly, "Because I can!"

       Animal, who had followed Gabriel over, snorted with amusement.  "What say you finish torturing your cunt later?" he said in a surprisingly kind voice to the girl.  She shrugged and pulled the dog back. 

       "Go wash before you drip on the rug," she ordered the slave, who fell to her knees and crawled away backwards.  Carmen yelled after her, "And don't come, either, you slut!"  Then she turned her attention back to Gabriel.  "Heal me," she commanded.

       Gabriel took a deep breath to steady himself, and reminded himself she was very young, badly raised.  He sat down on the edge of the divan.  "Aren't you going to ask me how your brother fares?" he said.

       Carmen looked taken aback again, and then said, "My father told me already."

       "He couldn't have told you everything," Gabriel said, "because he didn't know."  Carmen looked offended, and then pleased.  "He couldn't have told you how bravely your brother rode for weeks on end over land he did not know, and how, when he arrived in Harmony, he begged me to come ahead and not wait for him, or how fine a young man we all thought him."

       Carmen thought for a moment.  "He stayed behind because he can't stand the sight of me," she pronounced, at last.

       "Oh, no," Gabriel declared solemnly.  "He wanted nothing more than to return, but he was ill from his journey.  And," he added with a conspiratorial wink, "some think he was slightly loathe to leave Bessna, the pretty girl who nursed him."

       "If he liked a slave so, why didn't your people give her to him?" Carmen asked peevishly.  "He is the Bearer's son and deserves respect."

       Gabriel smiled a little at the rote quality with which the girl spoke.  "We have no slaves in Harmony," he said quietly.  "Bessna is free to stay or go as her own will desires, the same as you."

       At this Carmen's face scrunched up as though she would cry, and closed her eyes tight.  "I can't go anywhere," she whined, "will it or no.  My legs don't work."

       Gabriel said nothing but silently observed her until curiosity got the better of her and she opened her eyes, completely tear free.  "Don't you feel sorry for me?" she demanded.

       "I don't know yet," Gabriel replied.

       "Are you going to heal me?" she asked.

       "I don't know that yet, either," he responded.

       Behind him, Carmen's mother tsked.  "Of course he'll heal you, Darling," she said soothingly.  "He hasn't travelled all this way for nothing."

       Gabriel reminded himself to be patient, and slowly turned to  Yesnid.  As politely as he could muster, he said, "Is there a private room where I can examine the child?"

       Yesnid looked offended but nodded, snapping her fingers for the slave she had been beating earlier.  "Carry Carmen to her bedroom," she ordered.  The slave bent over the girl, lifting her and her blankets easily and carrying her quickly across the living quarters and down a hallway.  Gabriel noted that he placed the child with great care on her bed, a large four poster affair, and tucked blankets in around her .  The girl ignored him as he bowed his way out of the room. Gabriel closed the door behind him, took another deep breath, and turned to the child.  "Why don't you know?" she demanded, as if her mother had not interrupted their conversation.

       "For one thing, I don't know what's wrong with you or if I can fix it," Gabriel said slowly.  "For another thing, I don't know if you want to be fixed."  He approached her bed.

       "I fell off a horse, that's what wrong with me," the girl exclaimed.  "I haven't walked since."  She gave a toss of her head, as if she were proud of this fact. 

       "According to Tobias, your accident was close to a year ago, is that right?"  Gabriel said, sitting on the bed next to her. 

       The girl nodded.  "It was Tobby's fault I fell.  He never should have dared me to take that jump."

       Gabriel watched her steadily.  "Seems to me a girl your age is old enough to know what she can or can't do on a horse," he said. 

       

       Carmen scrunched up her mouth in a pout, but when she saw this only made Gabriel smile, she shrugged.  "I'll tell my Da you're not nice," she said.

         "He didn't come all this way to be nice to you, Darling," the Bearer said, from the door which he had opened, unnoticed.  "But you must be nice to him." 

       Carmen's face scrunched into another pout again, and the Bearer laughed.  "She's her father's daughter, Healer," he said.  "You'll have your work cut out for you." 

       Gabriel noticed with annoyance that the Bearer, uninvited into the room, seemed to expand to fill all of its space.  Speaking as courteously as he could, he said, "With respect, Bearer, my examination of a patient must be private." 

       The Bearer guffawed.  "Courage, great courage!" he said. "Very well, I'll amuse myself until you finish."  He walked down the hallway without closing the door and, with some annoyance, Gabriel walked over and closed it himself.  He began his physical examination of the girl.  He was puzzled that when he unexpectedly ran a pointer up the sole of the child's left foot, her back arched in a perfect reflex.  Yet she denied all sensation, and when he did the same to the right foot as she watched him, there was no reflex whatsoever.

       As he worked with her on some basic physical therapy exercises, she acted bored, looking off into the middle distance and sighing.  Yet, when after an hour he got up to leave, she

called after him petulantly, "You're not leaving me here, are  you?  I want to go back to the living room!"

       Gabriel turned back to her.  "Have you a wheel contraption?" he asked her.  "I'll get it for you."

       "A what?" the child asked, her eyebrows puckering into a frown.

       "A chair, on wheels," Gabriel said.  "Surely you must have one.  How else can you get around?"

       Carmen tossed her head.  "Turbo carries me," she said.  "I want him.  TURBO," she shrieked, so shrilly and unexpectedly that Gabriel's ears rang.  The slave who had carried her into the room came running down the hall and skidded to his knees in front of the child.  "Carry me!" she commanded and he, as gently as before, lifted her and carried her to the living room.  Gabriel followed slowly behind.

       The living room was still a confusion of children and slaves.  In one corner, the Bearer sat on an armchair, a slave girl sitting on his lap, leaning back against him, as he reached around and toyed with one of her nipples.  Although her arms dangled by her side, and she made no move to resist, she looked ready to cry.  With  a shock Gabriel realized the child was Rose.  Animal, sitting on a sofa nearby, studiously watched the children squabble on the other side of the room. 

       Noticing Gabriel, the Bearer stood up unconcernedly, Rose tumbling to the floor in the process, where she stayed on her hands and knees, trembling.  "Just getting her warmed up for you," the Bearer said with a grin to Gabriel.  "Hard to find them so tender in these living quarters!"  He gestured to his two year old son, who was slapping the ass of a slave girl with his chubby hands.  Gabriel turned away in disgust.  Animal, meanwhile, had stood up precipitously.  Snapping his fingers for Rose, he nodded peremptorily to the room and made for the door, Rose crawling after him.  Gabriel stopped only long enough to arrange with the Bearer that he would return in two days to work with the girls again, and then stepped quickly after Animal.

       When he turned the first corner, Animal stopped and waited for the other two to catch up.  With a slight toss of his head he indicated to Rose to stand up.  She did so, sniffing.  "Did he hurt you?" Gabriel asked her softly. 

       Rose shook her head and said, after a moment with a trembling voice, "No, master." 

       Animal snorted.  "He honored her, Healer, by deigning to notice her."  If Gabriel had not looked at Animal at that moment, he would not have seen the hard, bitter look on his face as he turned and walked down the corridor.

CHAPTER 8:  Settling in

       When they returned to Animal's suite, Gabriel coaxed Rose out of her terror enough to let him help set up his own apartment, across the courtyard from Animal's.  The rooms were a mirror image to Animal's in layout, with a living and dining area, a small kitchen, a large and small bedroom, and a bathroom. The furniture was similar in style to Animal’s as well, but somewhat haphazard.  Gabriel could see brighter spots in the carpeting where the furniture must have sat before Rose rearranged it that morning.  When he asked her how she had managed to move it without help she merely looked down and said, “Forgive me, master.”  And then she unconsciously rubbed her bicep.

       There were four apartments that shared the courtyard.  One had been converted into Animal’s studio.  Its southern wall was the outside wall of the mansion, and it was lined with windows across its length. 

       The fourth suite was occupied by an ornery old man, Pieter, and his matronly slave who, Gabriel later observed, cared for him conscientiously.  Animal laughed when Gabriel mentioned this.  "Of course she does," he said.  "When the old man dies it's back to the exchange for her.  Bad enough for a young thing like Rose. At Chilla's age she'll be lucky if she gets sent back to the farms instead of turned into dogsport." 

       “Really?”  Gabriel said, shocked.  “Are there so many trained nurses that their talents can be wasted?” 

       “I’m not a trainer,” Animal responded with asperity.  “But even the old men prefer to have a fresh young thing to change their bedpans.”

       Yet Gabriel noticed that Animal was courteous to both the Pieter and his slave, sometimes offering to keep an eye on the man as he napped in his lounge chair in the courtyard while Chilla ran errands or went about her household tasks inside.  When he saw that Gabriel had overheard him making arrangements to do this one day, he shrugged.  "The cunt causes no trouble and keeps the old man out of my way," he said.

       However, Animal forbade Rose to approach Pieter, keeping her out of the courtyard when he was there.  Gabriel thought he understood the reason for this when one day, Chilla was carrying Pieter out to his lounge chair at the same time that Rose happened to be crossing the courtyard from Gabriel's suite to Animal's.  The old man's eyes lit up when he saw her, and he beckoned her over to the lounge chair and made her get on his hands and knees before him, using her as a footstool, insisting that she move her back up and down, as he began to put ice cubes into her asshole, chortling.  Unlike with the Bearer, Animal wasted no time in pulling Rose away, cursing under his breath, and neither he nor Rose said anything more about it. 

       Gabriel did what he could for the Pieter as well, giving Chilla teas that would ease his arthritis some and showing her a massage technique that would help his circulation.  She accepted his offerings with a quiet smile, but rarely responded to his attempts to make conversation.  She was more forthcoming with Animal, and once or twice even laughed at a joke he made. 

       To his pleasure, Rose slowly overcame her fear of Gabriel.  Although her timidity could make her appear quite dull-witted, Gabriel soon learned that she was both intelligent and a keen observer of all that went on around her.  Although Animal was clearly fond of her, Gabriel doubted that he noticed the care that she took of him in not just obeying his orders but anticipating his desires and quietly making his life pleasant.  Other suites that Gabriel visited did not have fresh flowers adorning their dining room tables; and the fact that the apartment was spotlessly clean despite Animal’s slovenly ways in everything but his art was testament to Rose’s energy. 

       The most Animal would say about Rose, in a growl, was that "She's a good cook and nice in bed."  Indeed, her cooking was excellent, all the more surprising to Gabriel as she was not allowed to sample what she cooked, but ate only a lumpy, porridge-like gruel.  Gabriel was tempted to taste it once, but Animal warned him away sharply, telling him to avoid slave food if he ever cared to have children. 

       Animal and Gabriel quarreled at first over whether Rose should be allowed to sit at the table with them, a serious breach of protocol, but Animal gave in suddenly with a shrug.  He allowed Gabriel to coax her to eat small bites of the food that she cooked.  One day, pretending disinterest as Rose and Gabriel compared the herbs she used in cooking with those in Gabriel's medicine bag, he suddenly jumped in when he spied leaves he used as pigments.  Even Rose laughed at his hypocrisy, stifling a further giggle when he glared at her.

       

       Gabriel visited Carmen frequently, setting her up with a regimen of physical therapy which she rarely followed unless he took her through it himself.  Like her father, Carmen appeared to care little whether the legs that carried her were her own or those of a slave.  Gabriel was convinced that what ailed them was nothing more than atrophy and a habit of thinking of herself as an invalid. At times when his path crossed the Bearer’s, the man would look at him as if about to speak, but he never said much more than a jovial greeting.

       The wart of the Bearer's wife was the first of many tiny grievances the people of Riviera brought to Gabriel, demanding his attention and sympathy.  At Animal’s suggestion, the Bearer set him up with a clinic not far from the suite where he patiently met with seemingly endless numbers of people, many of whom seemed to have made up ailments just to have a chance to speak with the outlander.  As Animal pointed out, at least he could keep regular hours, as short as he chose, and politely refuse to see people who simply accosted him as he walked through the corridors. 

       After Gabriel set a broken arm of a slave that had accompanied his mistress to the clinic for advice about her acne, word spread that he was also a vet, and a talented one at that.  Although Gabriel longed to turn away the masters and mistresses with their pretended ailments, he labored to ease the pain of the slaves, only to find that the same slaves often were brought in the next day by their masters or mistresses after they had been further abused or tortured.

       He had other visitors to his clinic as well: a handful of men and women who were healers or vets, or aspired to be, and wanted to learn his techniques.  Gabriel welcomed them openly, happy to share what he knew, frustrated only by how often they did not show up at their promised times.

       Gabriel found comfort in his time with Animal, who he considered a friend, and with Rose, who he hoped someday would be.  His other refuge was the stables, not just riding Pegasus, a little more and faster every day as she became rested after the journey, but in the company of Jordan and the other stable hands, and, to his surprise, Stefan.  On one morning's visit to the stable he watched as Stefan led a speckled mare out of the stable, followed by Jordan leading a huge black stallion. Jordan mounted the black beast with a mighty swing of her leg.  "You ride?" he asked, incredulously.

       "As you see, my lord," Jordan said, straight-faced.  Stefan, nearby, snorted his own amusement, but rather than the sarcastic statement Gabriel expected from him, invited him to come riding with them.  Hastily Gabriel saddled Pegasus.

       Neither Pegasus nor Stefan’s mount could keep up with Jordan's huge horse, Midnight, as he raced.  Jordan looked like freedom itself cantering through a meadow, her eyes alight with joy and adventure.  Stefan told Gabriel that Jordan had broken Midnight to the saddle herself, and no one else rode him. 

       Gabriel frequently rode with Jordan or Stefan, or both, and was learning the grounds and paths to the west of the mansion. He came to learn that the passage he and Jonquil had ridden through from Holden’s Gate was known as the Whelping Corridor because that was where the young slaves, after an age to be taken from their mothers but too young to be trained for the mansion, farmed.  The rest of the grounds was worked by grown slaves who were not considered attractive or useful or young enough for mansion work. 

       One afternoon, on a whim, Animal and Rose came with Gabriel to the stables.  After consultation, Rose was mounted on gentle Mercy and Animal on the friskier Argon.  To everyone's surprise, Rose rode calmly and confidently, while Animal could barely control his mount, talking to her, then cursing her, then flailing at her with his legs, but making little progress in speed or direction.  Disdainfully Stefan had him switch mounts with Rose, and she continued to ride Argon with aplomb, firmly holding the reins and keeping her ankles down, a prim smile on her face.  Animal made it back to the stables with the rest only because Mercy would docilely follow any lead.  

       Gabriel tried to be sympathetic on the walk back to the mansion, but Rose giggled when she saw him biting his cheeks to keep from laughing, and then he let out a guffaw.  Animal stalked disgustedly up the front steps, but stopped suddenly and waited for them when he saw the Bearer and his entourage coming in a path to intercept them.

       The Bearer ignored Animal altogether and greeted Gabriel heartily. "Healer!" he boomed, as Rose fell immediately to the ground, banging the funny bone of her knee on a stair and giving a stifled, close-lipped whimper as she prostrated herself.  The Bearer looked down on her scornfully and stepped heavily down the stairs, turning her over disdainfully with the toe of his boot.  Gabriel moved to intervene, pulling Rose to her feet and putting his arm around his shoulder as Animal stood passively by.

       "We need to get you a real slave, Healer," the Bearer said. "This rag can't be properly showing you the glories of our civilization."  He stepped toward them, but Gabriel quickly put himself between the Bearer and Rose.

       "You frighten her," Gabriel said. 

       The Bearer laughed. "Of course I frighten her.  That's the fun!"  He put his hands up to his ears, palms forward, waggled his fingers, and made a grotesque face, moving towards her.  Rose cowered back.  The Bearer laughed again, and reached his waggling fingers towards Rose's breasts.

       Gabriel again put himself between Rose and the Bearer. "You told her she was to serve me," he said.  "That puts her under my protection.  And I ask you to leave her alone."

       A man from the group the Bearer was with stepped forward. "The Bearer has jurisdiction over all slaves," he said angrily.

       The Bearer raised his hand for peace.  "The Healer is a guest,"  he said.  "I honor his request."  He paused and then added, "But really, Healer, you must pick a better slave.  Some of them are quite remarkable in what they can do."  Seeing Gabriel's disinterest, he added, "Any slave you see, even if it's one of my own household, you can have.  Just say the word."

       "You're very generous," Gabriel said.

       The Bearer gave him a searching look and then said, “Come. Accompany me on my rounds as I look over the disintegration of my kingdom.  Today I go to the vineyards to find why our wine is becoming as sour as my disposition."  Gabriel looked to his friends and the Bearer added, "Bring the painter and his rag if you want."

       

       Despite his bombast the Bearer seemed anxious for Gabriel to come, and Gabriel was curious about the winemaking process here. Riviera's methods of production of basic commodities remained a mystery to him, and Animal was almost as ignorant of its ways as Jonquil had been.  Although only vaguely familiar with the vineyards at Harmony, he was anxious to seize any opportunity to learn how Riviera ran.

       Seeing that he had Gabriel's assent, the Bearer continued his stride across the lawn.  As he walked the Bearer frequently stopped suddenly, motioning a slave from his entourage to dig up a clump of crab grass or glaring at a gaggle of young men and women picnicking beneath a tree.  Three open wagons awaited them at the driveway at the edge of the lawn. The Bearer lumbered into the top seat of the front one, next to a burly slave with a sprinkling of gray hair.  The Bearer indicated that Gabriel should join him in his seat, while Animal and Rose scrambled inside and the rest of the entourage spread out over the remaining two wagons.

       They headed north over an area of Riviera which Gabriel had not yet seen.  They made their way through the farmland, worked by the ubiquitous slaves and their keepers. Looking around to see Animal dozing in the back, the Bearer turned to Gabriel and said quietly, “Tell me about my son.”

       And so Gabriel told him in detail of his son’s arrival at Harmony, seriously ill but fully determined.  He told how by the time Gabriel had set out he was certain to recover.

       “Will he return, do you think?” the Bearer asked, looking straight ahead.  Before Gabriel could reply the Bearer said, “Never mind.  You have no crystal ball.”  And he sighed.        

       Then the Bearer questioned Gabriel at great length about life in Harmony.  He was especially interested in its governance, which was shared among many.  He was curious about how they lived without slaves to do the hard—or easy--labor, and wondered at men and women tilling their own fields.  As Gabriel struggled to explain the only life he had known, the Bearer interrupted him.  “Tell me, in Harmony, do things seem to get worse from year to year?”

       “Things?” Gabriel asked, uncertain.

       “Things,” the Bearer repeated.  “Does your wine become more sour?  Do your buildings fall into disrepair?  Does your food get blander?”

       Gabriel thought of the ancient works of art Animal had showed him, the techniques lost to both cultures now. He answered slowly.  “In some things we seem to lose our gifts.  When I was a boy we had a population of homing pigeons that would carry messages over long distances, and they were decimated by a plague of some sort.  Our animal healers could do nothing.”

       He continued, “But in some things we improve.  We put in a new irrigation system that allows us to cultivate land more intensely and work less hard at it.  And just a couple of years ago some children discovered a hot spring.  We have been building a pool around it, which will . . .”  He stopped, embarrassed.  A bathhouse paled in comparison to the comforts of Riviera, with its running hot water and machines that made unlimited ice.

       But the Bearer merely nodded.  “And the people who led these innovations,” he asked, “were they old or young?” 

       Gabriel thought.  “Both, I suppose,” he said.  “Maybe the ideas came from the younger men and women, but the elders supported them and assigned tasks so they could be done.”

       The Bearer leaned back in his seat and sighed.  “Our young have no ideas,” he said.  “No motivation.  No desires, except pleasure and inflicting pain.”  He looked back at Animal, who was now snoring softly in the wagon.  “I would have given the painter the revel room he asked for; that he gave you hospitality in exchange was merely lucky timing.  Any innovation, any effort, I support it.  But it becomes rarer and rarer.”  He looked hard at Gabriel.  “You rebels took the best of us when you left,” he said without rancor.

       “That was over 100 years ago,” said Gabriel.  “It was generations gone.”

       “No matter,” the Bearer shrugged.  “The rebels were the thinkers and the doers.  And when they left, it was as if Riviera was a man who had lost a limb.”  He sighed.  “Your ancestors left because they did not want to own slaves.  But within a matter of months after they left the treatment of slaves here became much worse.  There was no one left to temper the cruelty and to remind us that even animals are part of creation.” 

       Gabriel was surprised.  “Respectfully,” he said, “If you feel that way why do you treat slaves as you do?”

       The Bearer frowned.  “Don’t misunderstand me,” he said.  “I’m no pansy and I never will be.”  He turned to glare at Rose, who looked down as if she had not been listening.  “But we are out of balance.  We have lost all restraint.” 

       The carriage passed out of the farmland into an uncultivated area.  The Bearer’s despondent mood passed, and he pointed out to Gabriel streams which were home to certain kind of fish, and marshy areas where berries abounded.  Gabriel realized that the Bearer had an immense knowledge of the details of the land he coordinated.

       When the party arrived at the vineyards they clambered out of the three wagons, Animal stretching and yawning.  When Horace, the vineyard master, showed them the varieties of grapes with which he was working, Animal’s interest was piqued by their potential as pigments.  He stayed behind with Rose to examine them as the rest of the party walked through the grape press and bottling areas and the underground storage.

       When they left Gabriel was not sure if the Bearer had found the answer to why the wine was decreasing in quality.  Horace had insisted that they sample enough varieties that Gabriel's head was spinning and the tip of his nose was numb.   

       Rather than heading back to the mansion by the route they had come, the Bearer instructed the drivers to make a circle.  The Bearer continued his discourse on various items of interest as they passed, but Gabriel found him hard to follow. 

       When they made their way back into farmland, the Bearer was speaking of their fallow system.  Gabriel was trying to explain Harmony’s own system of crop rotation, the details of which he did not know, as his attention was drawn to a crowd gathered a few acres ahead.  As they drew closer, he realized a large number of field slaves were gathered around a spectacle he could not make out.  They were quite near when he saw it was a slave girl tied to two wooden poles in the form of a t.  Her arms were spread over and tied to the horizontal  pole.  The vertical pole was planted in the ground.  Her girl’s hair was matted and her head lolled forward, at times jerking up, as if she was trying to remain conscious. 

       Noticing his interest, the Bearer instructed the driver to pull up.  "This is how we make examples of our incorrigible slaves," he said.  "This one looks near the end, so she has no doubt been brought from one cohort to another for several days now." The girl looked up again, and Gabriel thought she looked familiar, but couldn't place her.  He had seen so many he couldn't help. 

       "Looks like the boundary riders caught this one," the Bearer added after a moment.  "HELMER," he boomed out suddenly, startling Animal out of his doze.  One of the men who had been idling near the spectacle came up.

       "Majesty," he said.

       "Is that the runaway?" the Bearer asked idly.

       Helmer nodded and glanced at Gabriel, then did a double take.  He squinted.  "This is the runaway, Majesty," he said, "And that's the man that caught her." 

       Gabriel looked around to see who Helmer was indicating, and then realized the man meant him.  A sick feeling flooded his body. 

       Helmer went on.  "The cunt was giving us the slip, and suddenly on the path there's an outlander who points us right to her.  Didn't take us but a few minutes to catch up to her."

       "That's not right," Gabriel whispered hoarsely.  He had pointed in the opposite direction.  The child must have doubled back. 

       Animal was staring at Gabriel in amazement, and Rose looking steadfastly down without blinking, her own sign of surprise.  The Bearer guffawed and slapped Gabriel on the back.  "Well

done!" he said.  "There's more to you than you let on."

       The girl's head jerked up again, and she looked straight at Gabriel.  Her eyes were green within green.  Her head jolted forward again.

       "It's death by suffocation," the Bearer explained conversationally.   "The rib cage collapses.  Quite exquisite, really, and rare to take the time."

       Bile rose up in Gabriel's throat.  "You said I could have any slave I wanted," he said.  "I want that one."

       The Bearer looked alarmed. "Oh, no, lad, no you don't.  Let me give you a good slave, well-trained.  This one will be dead by morning.  Too mangled even for necrophilia."

       "She's the one I want," Gabriel said firmly.  He added, "Surely you wouldn't go back on your word to me."

       The Bearer gave Gabriel a sharp look, then smiled and shrugged.  "You want her, she's yours." He stood up in the carriage and gave his orders.  "Take her down slowly, and load her in the wagon."

       CHAPTER 9:  Awakenings

       For days Mariah drifted in and out of consciousness.  When she awoke she would feel the pain, and then, somehow, blessed relief as the clouds surrounded her limbs.  There was a sound that could have been the wind in the trees outside the wall, or could have been the low murmuring of voices.  Sometimes, on the edge of awareness, she could hear the breeze whispering to her, "Strength.  Life.  Courage." 

       Once she woke up.  A master she did not know was sitting on the edge of her sleeping ledge.  He held her left hand.  It seemed his voice was the breeze, for he was saying those words.  Then she slept again. 

       The next time she awoke he was holding her hand again, or still.  But this time he was sitting on the floor next to her sleeping ledge, his head bowed against his chest, breathing deeply, only his arm reaching onto her sleeping ledge to hold her hand.  His hair was so black it was almost blue, and curly and shiny.  On an irresistible impulse, she took her hand from his and smoothed down his hair.  It was soft to touch, like the leaf of a violet. 

       Reluctantly she drew her hand away.  He awakened with a start and turned to her, a haggard, embarrassed smile beginning on his lips. "Hey, there," he said softly, with the voice of the breeze.

       She froze, chilled to her core.  On the path, leading the horse, the stranger.  It was this master who had assured her he was not playing a mindgame, and, what was worse, who she had believed.  She shut her eyes and wished they had carried out their promise to kill her, no matter how slowly, in the fields.

       "Mariah, I'll never hurt you,"  Gabriel said.  "You're safe now."  His voice was soft but gravelly with sleep. He took her hand again and she involuntarily drew it back.  She concentrated on keeping her eyes shut, although the tears that could not fall made them sting.   

       Gabriel stood up clumsily, his limbs stiff. "You need to rest," he said at length.  "We'll talk later."  Mariah heard him leave the room and quietly close the door behind him.  For a minute or more she kept her eyes closed, fearing a trick. Hearing no noise in the room, she opened her eyes and looked around.  The master had indeed left her alone.

       The tears overflowed her eyes and she lifted her hands to wipe her face, then gasped as sudden pain shattered her right elbow, spreading through her arm.  She dropped her hands and concentrated on breathing through the pain.  At length it subsided sufficiently for Mariah to hear her own thoughts.

       Looking around, she recognized that the room was a small bedroom of an outer courtyard suite.  The window looked out on the Great Lawn.  Mariah realized with a start that she was not on a sleeping ledge but in an actual bed, alone.  The room had only the standard furniture, a bureau, a small bedside table, a wooden chair.  A pitcher of water and a glass stood on the bedside table, water droplets on its outside.  On top of the bureau she spied some bottles and what appeared to be dried leaves.

       These mysteries would be solved or not, Mariah told herself, but they were not important.  What mattered was that she was alive.  In the middle of a mindgame, true, but alive nevertheless.  The slave woman Rolanda's words echoed in her head.  Mariah had been outside the gates.  She had been free.  The thought of it made her heart pound fiercely.  And she had one thing that had been taken from Rolanda: her life.  Mariah now needed to gather her strength and to overcome whatever mindgame this new master was playing.  Then, she would figure out how to be free again.  She slept.

******

       

       The corn was well-grown.  It was late afternoon in the season when the daylight was short.  Mariah was carefully choosing the properly ripe ears and laying them in her basket.  She was towards the end of a row and deciding about a particular ear, fat but not full grown, when the bell clanged.  She started at the unexpected sound and stood for a moment, unsure whether to bring with her the corn in her basket.  With no time to dawdle, she plucked the ear she had been considering and lifted her basket, leaving it at the end of the row. 

       A few rows to her left Samson also placed his basket down.  He was newer to the cohort than she and reminded her of her brother, left behind when she had been brought to the whelping corridor.  She kept an eye on him when she could.  She silently indicated with a nod that he should walk with her and he trotted over, his sandy hair falling in his eyes.  "What is it?" he said in a stage whisper.  "Why is Master ringing the bell now?  It's so early." 

       Mariah shushed him and led him by the hand down the next row.  "I don't know," she said in a considerably softer voice. 

"Let's hurry." 

       They ran to the circle of lean-tos near the road as the cohort slaves appeared from all directions.  In the center of the circle was a slave woman, full grown.  Her hair was dark with mud, and tangled and over her face.  For a moment Mariah thought the slave woman was flying, like a witch, but then she saw that her legs dangled down like a scarecrow's over a vertical wooden pole that was dug into the ground, wide at the bottom and narrowing as it went up.  With a gasp Mariah saw that the pole went into the slave woman's naughty place.  Her arms were stretched out lengthwise over another pole which was attached near her hands to two other poles which also led to the ground.  Her entire body from her neck to her ankles was covered with fresh whipmarks.  There was silence as all the cornfield slaves took in the horror of the sight.

       The woman slave moaned weakly and shook her head, vainly trying to get her hair out of her eyes.  Mariah's own eyes welled up with tears at the sight.  At her side Samson grasped her hand tightly, clinging on to it.

       As if on cue, Master Timon stepped out of the shadows of one of the lean-tos with a mistress who was a stranger.  They approached the slave woman and then turned and faced the cohort. 

       The strange mistress spoke.  She was about the same age as the slave woman, but tall and imperious, her blond hair pulled back in a neat braid, her body muscular under her knee length green tunic.  "This cunt's name was once Rolanda."  The mistress's voice was as proud and strong as her body.  She looked at each slave in turn as she spoke.  "I gave her that name, the same name I have given to each cunt who has been privileged to serve me.  Now she has no name."  Her voice dropped.  "You are all young and do not know what is to become of you, and I am not allowed to speak of it.  But I will tell you that some of you, if you are found worthy, will serve masters and mistresses.  The work is easy and good, and your master or mistress will love you, and you will love them."

       Mariah grasped hungrily at this bit of information.  On a clear day, when her work brought her to the top of the hillock, she could see the mansion.  She knew she would be going there soon but had never been told what would await her, aside from whispered tales at night that were just the nonsense of the ignorant.

       The mistress continued.  "Rolanda was found worthy, and she served me, and I loved her.  But Rolanda was deceitful.  She pretended to love me but she did not."  The mistress looked at them with glittering blue eyes.  "One day I took Rolanda on an outing, to a peaceful place by a river.  I did this for Rolanda because I loved her.  This place was also near the outer gates of Riviera.  I did not worry about this because I believed that Rolanda loved me.  But she did not!  When I rested Rolanda ran away.  She ran past the outer gates of Riviera and tried to escape." 

       Outside.  Some of the tales talked about outside.  There really was such a place, then. Riviera had a boundary just like her cohort's acres had a boundary.

       The mistress continued.  "Of course she was caught immediately.  No slave has ever escaped Riviera and no slave ever will."  Amusement sounded in her voice.  "But Rolanda lost her name, and she will also lose her life.  Not kindly, in the service of Riviera, but slowly, as an example to all of you, so that when you are grown, if you are ever tempted to disobey, for even a moment, you will remember the fate that will await you."   

       The mistress turned and touched her lips to the bound slave woman's lips, pressing them for a moment.  Mariah felt a strange tingling sensation as if she had to relieve herself.  The mistress's tongue flicked out and touched the corner of the slave girl's mouth.  The slave girl whimpered slightly, and weakly shook her head.   The mistress pulled back, and grasped the whip that was attached to the waist of her tunic. 

       The whip was light, lighter than the one Master Timon used. But as the mistress brought it down across the slave woman's stomach, it drew blood as it crossed the fresh wounds of the recent whipmarks.  At the very first blow the slave let out a half moan, half scream. 

       The second stroke of the whip landed directly on the slave woman's left breast, curling around it.  This time the slave shivered, and as she did so her body slid a fraction of the inch down the pole that was inserted into her sex.  This in turn caused her to wriggle again, moaning uncontrollably.

       Mariah watched with her cohort, horror struck. She knew that if she looked away she would certainly be punished. The mistress brought down the whip a third time, this time on the Rolanda’s behind.  She jerked forward, again sliding down the pole in her, and then jerking backwards as rapidly.  Tears streamed down her face and she made incoherent sounds.  The mistress paid no heed, but aimed the whip at the top of the slave's legs and struck her there, again, again, and again.  "Please," the slave begged hoarsely.  "I'm sorry.  I'm sorry."  This seemed only to enrage the mistress.  Her arm was a blur of action as the whip struck the slave, front, back, up, and down. 

       At last, worn out, the mistress paused and looked at the cohort slaves one by one.  When her eyes rested on Mariah, for a reason Mariah could not explain she blushed.  A smile played on the mistress's lips.  "This slave will be taken from one field to another and whipped until she finally dies," her voice rang out, breathless from her exertion.  "This is the fate that awaits each of you if you fail to obey."  The mistress turned then to Master Timon and said, not so softly that Mariah could not hear her, "She needs to be fed and watered.  May I?"  She tilted her head coquettishly.  Master Timon responded with a slow smile, "Surely. Pick any one you want."

       Premonition came to Mariah like a cold shadow.  She pried her hand away from Samson's despite his silent protest.  As if in a dream the mistress turned to her and beckoned.  Mariah dropped to her hands and knees and crawled towards the mistress, purposefully banging her knees on the ground to distract herself from her fear.  She stopped at the mistress's feet and touched her forehead to the ground.  She heard Master Timon dismiss the other slaves and saw them scuttle away towards the fields. 

       "Kneel up," the mistress commanded, and Mariah obeyed, humbly keeping her eyes down.  The mistress placed two fingers under Mariah's chin, forcing her to look her in the eye.

The mistress watched her dispassionately for a moment.  At length she said, "You are well grown.  You will be leaving the fields soon."  Mariah tried to look as humble as she could.  No answer was required or expected from her.  The mistress turned Mariah's head to the right and then to the left, looking her over critically.  Then she dropped her fingers from Mariah's chin.  "Look at that slave," she commanded.  Mariah obediently looked over to the slave who had been called Rolanda, fainting and held up by the poles.  The mistress contemplated her as well.  "She will be put to death for her disobedience and deceit," the mistress said, and there was something that sounded akin to sorrow in her voice.  "But her death will be by pain, not thirst and hunger.  Bring her water, and feed her."  When Mariah remained, unsure of the mistress's command, the mistress grasped at her whip handle.  "Go now," she said.  "I have no time for games." 

       Mariah touched her forehead to the ground.  "You honor me, mistress," she said automatically, and crawled away as quickly as she could to obtain water and gruel.  She heard Master Timon exchange low, laughing words with the mistress and the two of them slipped off together to his workday cabin.  When Mariah returned to Rolanda with the food and gruel, she was alone with her. 

       Rolanda appeared to be unconscious still.  With a quick glance around Mariah stood up and gingerly wiped the hair off Rolanda' face, as the slave woman had been trying to do by shaking her head when Mariah first saw her.  She had no cloth so Mariah dipped her hand in the bowl of water she had brought and wiped Rolanda' face with it.  Rolanda came to with a start, again sinking down on the pole in her sex and bouncing back up again.  She looked around for a moment, wild eyed.

       "Shsh," Mariah said in a low, soothing voice she might use with Samson or one of the other younger slaves.  "We're alone.  I have brought you food and water."

       Rolanda squinted her eyes shut for a moment and then opened them, focusing on Mariah.  "Water," she said, in a low, ragged voice.  Mariah brought the water dipper to the slave woman's mouth and poured slowly.  Rolanda swished it around in her mouth and spit it out, splashing Mariah's feet.  Mariah jumped back involuntarily.  A sound came from Rolanda mouth like laughter or grunting.  Mariah lifted the dipper again and Rolanda took a long drink.  Rolanda looked at Mariah again, then.  Echoing her mistress, Rolanda said, "You are well-grown.  You'll be leaving the fields soon."  Mariah nodded but did not reply.  She lifted the bowl of gruel she had brought and spoon fed the slave woman, one bite and then two.  Then Rolanda clamped her mouth shut and refused to be fed.  When Mariah lowered the spoon Rolanda said,  "No more of this slop."  Mariah's eyes widened at the slave woman's defiance.  Rolanda laughed again.  "You eat it," she said.  "No one will know that you haven’t obeyed."  Mariah looked at her fearfully.  "Go on," Rolanda urged her.  "This isn't a mindgame.  You eat."

       "No," Mariah said.  "You need to eat.  You need your strength." 

       Rolanda laughed again, harshly and quietly.  "You're sweet," she said in a ragged voice, "But aren't you paying attention?"  She stopped for breath and continued, "I'll be dead soon, and better sooner than later.  Look at me--fucked to death by a pole!" 

       Mariah looked at her blankly.  Rolanda snorted and then coughed weakly.  "Of course, you don't know what fucking is yet, do you?"  Mariah shook her head.

       "Eat the gruel," Rolanda said.  "And I'll give you some advice."

       Mariah looked around.  It was that part of dusk when it is difficult to distinguish shadows from reality.  Master Timon and Rolanda' mistress were in his cabin.  The other slaves would be emptying their baskets into the waiting wagons.  Mariah moved closer to Rolanda and quietly began to spoon the gruel into her own mouth.

       "Listen to me closely," Rolanda whispered.  "This will help you to survive. Your whole life," and with her head she managed to indicate all that surrounded them, "everything you have been taught, it is all a mindgame! Every word!  But remember, the only way to get through a mindgame is to play it to the end.

       "Soon they'll take you from here, to the factory.  Don't believe a word of what they tell you, not one of them.  They will try to take you from one mindgame to another.  They'll make your body betray you, and tell you it is proof that you deserve to be a slave.  It's not true.  It's not!"   The slave began to sputter and cough.

       Mariah gave her more water from the dipper.  "You don't understand what I'm saying, do you?"  Rolanda asked, and she seemed not to see Mariah.  "It doesn't matter.  Just remember!  They all lie.  None of them care for you.  None of them love you."  Rolanda was weeping now.  "I was outside the gates for an hour, maybe two.  She tries to tell me it never happened, but I remember.  For two hours I was free!  It was glorious!  I wish I could live, for the hope of another chance.  But I will die in peace.  Two hours of freedom."  Rolanda's voice trailed off, and Mariah knew she could not see her; but what vision Rolanda was having Mariah could not comprehend.  Gently she again brushed the hair of Rolanda's face and did what she could to bathe some of the dirt out of her wounds.  Rolanda merely muttered.  "Two hours.  I know it happened.  Two hours." 

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.

               

Chapter 11: The games begin

       

       Mariah had attempted to steel herself to leave the corn fields even before her encounter with Rolanda.  After the night of the fire, she felt it was right that she should go.  Whether because of her age or because of what Rolanda had told her, she was no longer part of the cohort.  Master Timon must have sensed the same thing.  He had taken to singling her out for criticism and punishment, telling her he needed to wipe Rolanda's pollution from her.  Nevertheless, when the rider on the black and brown horse came one midmorning, her stomach clenched tightly and she fought nausea. 

       Master Timon had few words for her at parting.  As Mariah had seen him to do so many other slaves, he placed black eyeshades over her eyes and tied them snugly around her head.  Then he boosted her onto the horse behind the rider, and said, "Remember to always obey your betters."  The rider spurred his horse before she could gather her thoughts.  Wishing desperately for one last glance at the field she had cultivated for so long, she choked back a sob.  The rider said in annoyance, "None of that.  I'm not in the mood for punishing, but I could change my mind."

       "My apologies, Master," Mariah responded. 

       Of course Mariah had never been on a horse before.  Her legs were painfully pulled apart over the horse's broad back and her knees started to ache almost immediately.  Her crotch rubbed uncomfortably on the saddle, which dipped so that she was sitting almost under the rider.  They rode for some time, the horse mostly walking but at times breaking into a slow jog which jounced Mariah like a ragdoll.  She surmised that they had long passed her home cornfields, and the neighboring squash fields, and the tomatoes beyond that.  Mariah had never been past the tomatoes. 

       They rode on and on.  The rider hummed tunelessly.  The blindfold let no speck of light through.  Mariah could hear the birds and feel when the horse left the sunlight into the shade of trees and when he presently went back into sunshine.  The fear still burned in Mariah's stomach like a hot coal, but with the monotony of the ride her mind wandered, her thoughts turning inevitably to Rolanda.  All that was familiar to her was gone now.  She had only Rolanda's mysterious words to guide her.

       The ache in Mariah’s knees grew worse.  Without meaning to she shifted in the saddle.  The rider flicked his whip backwards, catching her across the upper buttocks.   "Forgive me, my lord," Mariah said, but there was no reply.  Mariah wondered what matter of man this rider was.  He seemed to take no interest in transporting her, or in her at all.  Why did he do it, then?  Had he ever been dragged from his home?  Could he be kind if the mood took him?

       Of course, Mariah reflected, really she knew herself no better.  Oh, she knew how many hills of corn she could hoe in a day, how many pounds she could carry, how many times she could be lashed before she cried out. But she knew no more about her own character than she did about this rider's.  Why had she fought so hard to stop her cohort from torturing the rabbit?  Gone against Samson, who until that night she had always felt a protective warmth for?  And incurred the anger of her whole cohort?  Was she brave?  Or a fool?  She had never thought of herself as either.  Would this mysterious place where the rider was taking her teach her the answers?

       How much time passed Mariah could not say.  The horse stopped.  The rider instructed her to take off her mask, and Mariah obeyed, the bright sunlight burning her eyes.  "Get down," he ordered her, and clumsily Mariah pulled her left leg around so that she could slide off, crying out with the sharp pain in her knees and falling down when she landed.  The rider dismounted and gave her a hard kick, the narrow toe of his leather boot going between her ass cheeks.  Mariah fell forward onto her face.  With his boot the master rolled her over on her side and then kicked her in the abdomen.  Mariah struggled against crying out.  He watched her for a moment, then said, "Get up and stop wasting my time."  Mariah scrambled to her feet, trying desperately to get her wind back.  Ignoring her gasping, the master quickly tied her hands behind her back and gave her a shove forward.

       In front of them was the mansion.  It was larger than she had ever imagined, looming seemingly endlessly in both directions.  The rider whipped her hard, on the stomach.  "No looking," he growled.  "Walk." 

       The rider pushed her towards a doorway which was silently opened by a male slave. The rider gave her another shove and she walked down the hallway.  He occasionally whipped the back of her knees when she walked too slowly or looked about her.  They passed masters and mistresses and slaves but the rider spoke to no one.

         

       At length the rider indicated that she should enter a door to their right.  It opened onto a new hallway, not covered with grand carpeting like the others, and dimly lit.  Again, there were doors on either side, and the rider pushed her down the hall to the fifth door on the right.  He opened it and pushed her inside, so roughly that she almost fell again.

       Looking up, she saw twenty or so slaves, each of their ankles and wrists manacled to the wall.  The rider whipped her thigh, the lash curling around her leg and ending near her toilet place.  "No looking," he said again.  Roughly, he dragged her to the far wall.  He unbound her hands and one by one locked them into handcuffs at shoulder height, her arms bent.  Then he kicked her legs apart and manacled them as well.  Finally, he spit on his finger and rubbed her clitoris for a moment.  She shrank back, her buttocks hitting the cold wall. He laughed, turned, and left, the door clanging shut behind him.

*****

       When Mariah awoke her first thought was that Animal's promise that no one would hurt her while she slept had been another lie.  There was pain in every corner of her body.  Anger at the mindgame and disgust at herself for believing it cleared her head.  Concentrating, she broke down the pain bit by bit. 

      A sharp ache in her chest, where Master Gabriel had manhandled her earlier.  General aching in her cunt and asshole. Her pulse beating a steady throb in her face.  Sharp itchiness on her legs and most of the rest of her; that would be whipcuts healing.  Most acute was her arm.  These could all be wounds from the Torment then; no sharp, new pain. 

     

      Rose stood at the window, staring pensively out, unaware that Mariah was awake.  She was pretty, Mariah thought, and not just because she was unmarked.  She seemed open and innocent, if that was possible for a slave who was past the age of breaking in.

     

      “What’s out there?” Mariah asked, but her voice was a croak

     

      Rose turned with a start.  “Oh, I was . . .” She blushed.  “I was trying to name the color of the sky.”

     

      “It’s blue,” Mariah said. 

     

      Rose laughed a little, and went out the door.

       Gabriel came in a moment later.  He sat at the chair by the bed and watched Mariah for a minute.  "No spit?" he asked, almost as if were genuinely nervous.  Mariah tried to lick her lips, but her mouth was parched. 

      “Let’s get you sitting up and then you can have a drink,” Gabriel said.  He grabbed from the closet a stack of pillows that, Mariah noticed, already had pillow cases on them.  Placing his hand in the middle of her back, he gently helped her sit up.  He put the pillows behind her so she could rest against them, leaning back only a little.  He poured a glass of water from the pitcher and held it to her lips, and she drank. 

       As Gabriel lowered the glass he said, "Animal tells me that your right arm hurts." Mariah nodded dully without looking at him.  She felt dizzy.  "I lowered the dose of pain suppressant," he continued, "so you'll be feeling things more sharply than before."  So this was the torture.  Gabriel continued, oblivious. "I know some of what's wrong with you.  But the arm I can only guess.  I'm thinking it's a torn rotator cuff, but I need you to help me out with this."   

       "I am your obedient servant, Master," Mariah said, her voice still hoarse. 

       Gabriel actually smiled at her. "Good," he said.  "I need more of those around here."  Seeing Mariah's confusion his smile left.  "I want you to try and trust me," he said.  "I can help you get better if you trust me."

       "I'm not stupid, Master," Mariah said, repeating her earlier words to Animal.  "I trusted you outside the walls.  You said you would help me, and you turned me in."

       Gabriel put the glass on the bedside table and turned to her.  "I tried to help you, Mariah," he said, “I swear it. I sent you west and the hunters east.  I don't know how they found you." 

       Mariah started to shrug but it was too painful.  The man seemed sincere.  So had so many masters and mistresses.  Until the end of the mindgame.  Then the rape, the torture, the trip to the exchange.  "I am your obedient servant, master," she repeated.

       Gabriel sighed.  "All right, obedient servant, I’ll work with that.”  He reached his hand to her right shoulder, but she flinched back, which made her groan.  Gabriel stopped and slowly backed his hand away from her and lowered it onto the bed.  His fingertips touched hers, as if by accident. He slid his hand forward until it covered hers.  Mariah did not pull back.  For some reason she found she was crying.

       “It’s okay,” Gabriel said.  “You’re safe now.”

       Safe?  She was a slave.  She looked deliberately pulled her hand away, ignoring the pain.

       “How far can you move your arm?” Gabriel asked, looking at her shoulder intently.  Mariah didn’t answer.  Gabriel moved his hand to hers and she moved away from him even further, staring stonily ahead.  Gabriel slid his hand under hers, and she raised her arm, bending it at the elbow.  She cried out with pain.

       Gabriel nodded to himself and smiled slightly.  “All right then,” he said briskly.  “I’m going to see what you can move and what you can’t.”  He took the blanket off of her. Mariah stared at him defiantly.

       “On the count of three,” Gabriel said, “I’m going to bend your leg.  You tell me if it hurts.”  Lifting her ankle, he counted slowly, “One. . . . Two. . . . Three.”  He pushed her ankle towards her butt, so that her knee was bent.  Mariah resisted but Gabriel didn’t seem to notice or mind.  He slowly pushed until her foot touched the back of her thigh, and then pulled it back out until her leg was straight again.  He did the same thing with Mariah’s other leg.  If he noticed that she resisted less, he gave no sign.  Nor did he ask her if it hurt.

       Gabriel took Mariah’s left hand.  “Same thing,” he said.  “On the count of three.”  He pressed on the inside of her elbow and  counted slowly, “One. . . . Two. . . . Three.”  He gradually bent her arm until her hand touched her shoulder, then straightened it out.

       He took her right arm, the one that hurt, and put his other hand on the inside of her right elbow, pressing.  “One . . . .”  Quickly he bent her arm, pressing down on her inner arm.  Mariah felt a click, and a hailstorm of pain as Gabriel straightened out her arm. 

       Through the pain Mariah felt rage boil over in her.  She hated him, she hated him, she hated him.  “Sorry,” Gabriel said.  He waited a beat.  “How does it feel now?”

 

      Quite suddenly Mariah noticed that her arm was hurting much less.  She moved it. There was an ache, but it no longer felt useless.  She was so surprised that she looked Gabriel in the eye.  “How did you do that?” she asked.

     

      Gabriel smiled with satisfaction.  “You had a dislocated elbow,” he said.  “Easiest thing in the world to fix.” 

     

      Mariah stretched out her arm all the way in front of her.  “Careful,” Gabriel said.  “Your elbow was out of joint for too long.  You’ll have to keep pressure off of it for at least three days, and ice it.” 

       “It’s a mindgame,” Mariah told herself fiercely.  But the absence of pain was such a relief that she actually smiled. 

      Gabriel pressed his advantage.  “I want to take a look at your ribs.  Will you let me?”  Mariah nodded, remembering what Animal had said.  If she could regain her strength, there was hope. 

       Gabriel laid his hand flat on her chest.  She shrank back slightly into the pillows but Gabriel paid no heed to that.  His hand was icy cool. 

     

      When Gabriel instructed Mariah to take a deep. slow breath, she did so until it became painful.  Moving his hand slightly he gave her the same instruction, again and again.  Gabriel's eyes were closed and he seemed to breathe with her. 

     

      At last he opened his eyes and took his hand away, although her skin seemed to burn where he had last touched it.  “Two cracked ribs,” he said.  “That’s why it hurts when you breathe.”

     

      “Oh.”  How did he know it hurt?  “Are you going to fix them, like you did my elbow?”

     

      Gabriel smiled gently, which for some reason made Mariah blush.  “Elbows are easy,” he said.  “Ribs are hard.  I can’t cure them.”

     

      Disappointment flooded Mariah.  She felt her eyes fill up with tears, again.

     

      Gabriel took her hand again. “I can’t cure your cracked ribs,” he said, “but you can.”

     

      Mariah bit her lip to keep it from shaking.  Stupid mindgame. 

     

      “Deep slow breaths,” Gabriel continued.  “Several times a day.  And no strenuous movements.  After six months you’ll be good as new.”

     

      “Six months?” Mariah said.  She laughed harshly.  “And I suppose you intend to keep me safe in this room for all that time, and not require that I perform my duties, or torture me?”

     

      Gabriel was still holding her hand.  He waited until she looked him in the eye.  “I hope to keep you safe, yes,” he said.  “But not in this room, unless you choose to stay here.”  He let go of her hand, reached into his pocket and took out a plain silver bracelet, opened at a hinge.  He put it around her wrist and closed it with a decisive click.  “Animal says this is no guarantee, but it should go a long way to keeping others from injuring you.”

     

      Mariah stared at the do not molest bracelet.  This was not the first one she had ever worn; her duties to past masters and mistresses had required that she run their errands, and they wanted to save her torture for themselves.  Yet, unbelievably, she was crying again.  The damn, damn kindness mindgame, the hardest one to fight.  “Why are you doing this?” Mariah asked, her voice husky.

     

      “Why am I helping you to heal?” Gabriel responded, misunderstanding her.  “For one thing, I’m a healer.  I took an oath to help where I could.”  He was silent for a moment, rubbing his hand through his hair.  “For another thing, even though I didn’t mean to I seem to be responsible for you getting . . . hurt, or caught, which gives me a special responsibility towards you.”  He took a deep breath and added, “And there’s another reason . . . “  His voice drifted off. 

     

      Mariah wondered whether this was where he would reveal the mindgame, that he was healing her so he could torture her.  She doubted it; it was too soon for so elaborate a set up.  “Why?”  she asked him.

     

      Gabriel was blushing.  He cleared his throat and said softly, “I’ve promised myself that I will see that same light in your eyes as you had when you were outrunning the hunters.”  Mariah merely looked at him, and he continued, as if talking to himself, “It was as if . . . you were like a goddess come to light my way.” 

     

     

      He turned away, but only for a moment.  He cleared his throat again. “If you’re not too tired, I’d like to examine the rest of your body, and make sure there’s nothing that needs attention that we haven’t missed.”  Mariah nodded, stunned.

     

      Gabriel helped her to put her legs over the side of the bed.  He looked over her cuts and bruises, and poured a liquid onto some of them that were infected.  The medicine made the area seem warm, like it was burning, only pleasant.  He dabbed some onto a cut on her cheek, which made her eye sting and tear up.  "Sorry," he murmured, and gently wiped the liquid below her eye with a handkerchief.  For some reason this made her eye tear more, and she turned away from him.

     

      Gabriel had her stand up so he could examine her backside.  As he tended to more wounds her legs started to shake.  He helped her sit again and cleared his throat.  "Is there any place else that hurts?" he asked, his voice gentle and embarrassed at the same time.  "Any place I haven't looked?" 

       Mariah wondered at his obvious discomfort.  "You've looked everywhere but my cunt and my butthole, master," she said. 

       "Do they hurt?" he asked, tentatively.  "When I saw you they had..." His training overcame his embarrassment. "You were severely tortured in those places.  I examined you when you were sleeping and they seemed to be healing.  But if they hurt, I can make you more comfortable."

       "Master, could I..." she paused, breathed, and decided to test her power to use this mind game.  "Could I use the toilet?" she blurted.

       Gabriel blinked.  "I'm sorry, I should have thought," he said.  "Of course."  He helped her to stand up again and hobble over to the toilet room.  Holding the door for her, he switched on the light and closed the door behind her, leaving her alone.  Mariah tried to remember the last time she had been allowed to use the toilet, much less alone.  She might enjoy this mindgame yet.

       As she was leaving, she saw her reflection in a mirror above the sink.  Now she knew the extent of Animal's humor the day before.  Her face was bruised and swollen.  Her hair missing in chunks, and what was left hung like dirty string.  She turned away, revolted. 

       Gabriel helped her back into bed.  She was suddenly exhausted, and he half carried her, gently placing the sheets and blankets around her.  She barely noticed as he spooned his medicine into her mouth before she fell asleep again.

Chapter 12:  Rebellion and panic

       After the rider left, Mariah dared to look around.  The other slaves were all, it seemed, like her, of an age to leave the fields.  They were similarly bound.  There were boys and girls both, and between them it made no difference which ones cried or moaned and which ones tried to seem stoic and brave.  A guard leaned lazily back in a chair, seemingly asleep, but when one of the slaves tried to talk he flicked his whip at her.

       At length a mistress came in, and imperiously glanced each slave up and down.  She saw Mariah staring at her and approached, stopping just a few inches from her.  The mistress lifted her hand and lightly stroked Mariah's right breast, and then squeezed her nipple.  Mariah shrank back from her touch.  The mistress laughed, a cold, tinkling laugh.  "You can't escape from our touch, cunt."  Her index finger circled Mariah's breast.  "You like this, don't you?"

       Mariah shook her head, panicked.  "Please, mistress, no.  I am a good girl." 

       The mistress seemed angered by this response.  "You don't like my touch?"  she said, her pink lips forming a straight, tight line.  Suddenly, with the heel of her hand she pushed Mariah's breast, hard, bruising it against her ribcage.  Mariah groaned.  Without loosening her stance, the mistress leaned over and licked Mariah's ear.  “Soon," the mistress whispered, "Soon you will crave our touch.  You will beg for it." Abruptly she walked away from Mariah, to a slave boy across the room.  Wordlessly she freed him from his chains.  He fell to his hands and knees, and the mistress playfully kicked his bottom, indicating that he should precede her out of the room.  Mariah longed to rub her sore breast, but could not, prevented by her chains. 

       Over the next few hours more masters and mistresses came into the room, each selecting a slave that they took with them.  Mariah was careful to keep her eyes on the floor and none of them took any notice of her.  Mariah thought of what Rolanda had tried to tell her.  Was this what she was referring to?  All the rules were different in this place.  She did not know how to obey, or how to escape punishment.

       After a time a master approached Mariah and stood in front of her, as the mistress had done.  Mariah carefully looked only at his boots.  He began to blow on Mariah's face, first one cheek, then the other.  Mariah did not move, but she felt stinging tears forming in her eyes.

       The master pulled on the bottom of Mariah's hair so that she was forced to look up.  He had a narrow, pinched face.  "Are you a virgin?" he asked her, and his voice was mean.

       "Please, my lord, yes," Mariah answered, the tears in her eyes sounding in her voice.

       "A virgin and not afraid?"  he asked her.  Mariah had no answer as her terror was palpable.  The master laughed.  "Do you want me to touch you?"  he asked her. 

       Mariah knew there was no response for this.  She had been a good girl, and clean, her whole life, but in this place the rules were not as they had been in the fields.

       The master pulled her hair, yanking on it with each syllable.  "Answer me," he said, and again asked slowly, enunciating, "Do you want me to touch you?"

       Mariah thought of Rolanda again.  She said, "I want only to please you, my lord." 

       The master laughed.  "A good answer," he said.  "But not good enough."  His hand went down to her toilet place, pulling lightly on the hairs there.  Mariah gasped but willed herself not to move.  Her legs were cuffed open and wide apart, and there was no protection from his hand.  He touched the lips of her clitoris gently, and then, abruptly, pushed his index finger into her vagina.  She gasped with pain.  With his thumb he rubbed her clitoris. 

       "Now," said the master, "Does that feel good, or does it hurt?" 

       "Please, my lord," Mariah gasped.  "It hurts." 

       The master laughed again.  He took his finger out of her sex and reached further back until it touched her asshole.  He pressed and his finger went in.  He continued to rub her clitoris with his thumb.  “And now?" he asked, "pleasure or pain?" 

       Mariah could not answer, her backside burning, his finger like sandpaper on the mass of nerves in front. "Please," she said, "please." 

       He stopped rubbing her clitoris, and shoved his finger further up her ass, his fingernail tearing at her.  "You dare to not answer me, cunt?" he said.  "Soon you'll beg for this.  You'll beg for my touch.  You'll say, 'Please, Master Jonas, do that some more'" and he made his voice high pitched and mocking.   He pulled his finger almost all the way out of her ass, then pushed it back in, slowly, and she groaned.  "That's better," he said.  "You moan with pleasure from my touch."  He pulled his finger all the way out of her, a movement which burned as much as his shoving it into her had.  He undid her bonds.  "Get down on your hands and knees," he ordered.

       She looked at his mean, pinched face, and at the floor which was filthy from the excrement of the terrified slaves.  From somewhere deep inside, where, she could not say, came the word, "No."

       Master Jonas spun around, his first reaction more surprise than anger.  "What?" he cried.  "What?"  Mariah, although her heart was hammering, looked stonefacedly back at him.  Master Jonas regarded her blackly.  Then he slammed her back against the wall, his forearm under her chin, choking her.  He lowered her voice so that only she could hear.  "Have you ever seen a slave who has been tortured to death for disobedience?"  he asked.

       Rolanda.  Mariah nodded, desperately regret filling her.  Master Jonas narrowed his eyes.  "I will have that done to you," he said.  "Beginning right here, right now.  Is that what you want?" 

       Mariah could not breathe.  She had no doubt he would carry out his threat.  She shook her head frantically.

       Master Jonas pressed harder against her throat.  "Then when I let go of you you will get down on your hands and knees and you will never, EVER, disobey me again.  Am I clear?"

       Mariah nodded wildly.  Master Jonas stepped back and Mariah fell to the floor, scrambling to her hands and knees immediately while gasping for breath.  Jonas stepped on her bottom, forcing her to lie all the way down in the excrement.  "Lick the floor," he ordered her.  She licked it. 

       "Don't move an inch," he said, and she heard the whistle of the whip only an instant before she felt it, searing into her buttocks and her hips.  The force of it made her slam her chin into the floor.  The whip rammed into her buttocks a second time, and her teeth bit her tongue that still licked the floor as he had ordered.  He whipped her a third time, on her lower back.  The lash was harder than she had ever felt it before, and she was sure she must be bleeding already.  A fourth time the lash hit her upper legs. 

       He stopped.  "I have not finished this," he said, his voice low and cold.  "I have only delayed it because I need you fresh for what comes next.  When we are done with the factory, you will regret this moment.  You will be a torture cunt for the rest of your short life.  Now slide to the door." 

      Mariah was in agony.  The beating was short, but no one had ever whipped her so hard.  She started to slither over the slippery floor to the door.  He kicked her legs apart and stepped on the lips of her sex with the toe of his boot.  As she slid, her clitoris stretched and then escaped from his boot.  He stepped on it again, again, and again until they reached the door, until her sex ached as much as her back, buttocks and thigh where she had been whipped.  "What is this place?" she thought to herself in despair.  In a vision she saw Rolanda's face in front of her.

       In the hallway Master Jonas mercifully let her crawl on her hands and knees.  He contented himself with flicking her buttocks occasionally.  Although it did not really hurt, each time she heard the whistle of the whip Mariah fought paralysis.

       Master Jonas directed Mariah to turn into a doorway on the left.  The room was a large, empty bath chamber, with a tiled floor and a drain in the center.  Master Jonas took a hose from the wall and pointed it at Mariah before turning it on.  It was not full blast, but the water was freezing, cold enough to burn Mariah.  He directed her to stand up, and raise her arms over her head, and turn around slowly.  He hosed her all over, lingering on her breasts which had already endured so much that day.  Then he told her to get back on her hands and knees, with her legs spread wide.  She obeyed, and he sprayed the cold water at the crack between her legs.  Then, turning down the power of the hose down to little more than a trickle, he inserted it into her anus, and she felt herself swelling with the cold water.  "Mercy," she thought to herself.  "Mercy."  But she did not speak.

       When she began to fear that her insides would rupture, he turned of the water and removed the hose from her.  He waited a moment to see if Mariah would be willful and attempt to move or if she would hold the water.  When she remained motionless, he indicated a toilet in the corner of the room. "Go shit in that," he ordered, and he watched her with his arms crossed as she, unable to stand, crawled to the toilet and pulled herself up on it, her body cramping with the exertion.  As soon as she sat on the bowl her body emptied itself of water and shit.  The cramping continued as the stuff poured out of her. 

       Suddenly, unexpectedly, Master Jonas's whip lashed Mariah on the breast.  "Did I give you permission to piss?" he demanded.  Mariah looked at him with stupefaction.  "Answer me!"  He whipped her again, this time directly across the nipple.

       "No, my lord," Mariah answered in a whisper.

       Master Jonas held his whip in his right hand, tapping its handle in his left.  "You are the wickedest slave cunt in memory," he said.  "I should kill you now, for you will obviously be nothing but trouble."  He seemed to consider.  "Yet, taming the wild beast has its own pleasure.”  He tapped his whip handle in his hand.  “Very well,” he said at last.  “You will not piss for the next twenty four hours.  If you obey me, this matter will be forgotten."

       "Thank you, master," Mariah whispered.

       Master Jonas snorted.  "You can thank me by obeying me.  Now, close the lid and kneel over the toilet." Mariah obeyed, wondering what this next torture would be.  When the water hit her bottom again she began to scream uncontrollably, not even realizing the water was lukewarm and merely drizzling between her crack.  Even when the water stopped she could not stop screaming.  Her last memory for some time was of Master Lucas leaning against the wall, laughing. 

       

       CHAPTER

       When Mariah awoke, she was grateful that Master Lucas had covered her with a blanket while she slept, which seemed an unusual kindness in him.  But when she opened her eyes she remembered.  Master Lucas was years ago.  This was the new mindgame.

       Animal was sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall, a sketchpad on his knees.  When he saw that she was awake he said sourly, "Your timing's lousy.  No one around but me and I'm working." 

       "My apologies, master," Mariah said meekly, and then coughed, her throat dry. 

       Animal rolled his eyes and threw his sketchpad onto the floor.  "Okay, okay," he grumbled.  He stood up, stretched, and ambled out of the room, coming back a moment later with a tray with a bowl of gruel on it, and water.  "Gabriel says you can feed yourself," he said, ungraciously, putting the tray on the table next to the bed.  Mariah sat up and Animal put the tray on her knees.  She tentatively tasted the food, relieved that it was just gruel.  Animal said, "He'll have you on human food soon, you'll see.  I convinced him you'll eat more if its gruel and you're not terrified."

       Mariah bristled.  "I don't get terrified," she said angrily.  "This mindgame doesn't scare me."

       Animal just snorted.  He picked up his sketchpad and returned to his place on the floor, ignoring her.  After finishing her gruel, Mariah tested her limbs again.  Her rib area hurt as before, but the pain in the rest of her body was less sharp.  The tray on her knees felt heavy, but she knew she could not move it without help.  She sighed softly.  If Animal heard her he gave no sign.

       There was a soft rap at the door, which Animal ignored.  A moment later, the door opened and Rose looked tentatively in.  Taking in the scene, she smiled softly at Mariah and came in, walking silently.  Mariah saw with some remorse that she wore a bandage on her arm, where she had been cut the day before--or had it been longer ago than that?  Mariah didn't know. 

       Wordlessly Rose took the tray from Mariah.  She reappeared a few minutes later with a large wooden comb in her hand.  Holding the comb up, she raised her eyebrows, silently asking Mariah's permission. Mariah shrugged.  Rose took that as assent and settled herself behind Mariah on the bed. 

       The combing of Mariah's hair was a long and, despite Rose's gentle hands, painful process.  When, at last, Rose indicated that she was finished, Mariah glanced over at Animal who, to her surprise, was looking at the two of them intently while his hand flew over the sketch pad.  He scowled at her, but after a moment put the pad down. 

       "Can I look, Master?" Rose asked softly.  Animal shrugged and closed his eyes as if he were greatly weary.  Rose took the pad from him and brought it back to Mariah's bed to show her. 

       "It's you!" Mariah said in surprise as she looked at the sketch of the slave girl.  Then she added in a squeak, "It's me!"  Indeed, the picture showed Rose, serious and gentle, holding Mariah's hair near the roots with one hand and pulling a comb through it with the other.  Mariah saw that Animal had drawn her own face less bruised than it had been in the mirror the day before, and less swollen, but he had not skimped on the bald spot near her forehead where her hair had been yanked out, or on the grimace that made her appear all the uglier. 

       Mariah looked at Animal in amazement.  He, no longer feigning sleep, smiled at her a little sheepishly, then checked himself and frowned.  Mariah almost smiled but she, too, checked herself and frowned. 

       At that moment Gabriel walked in.  He looked tired and drawn.  "Can I get you something, Master?"  Rose asked sweetly.  Gabriel shook his head and flung himself onto the floor next to Animal. 

       "Esmerelda whipped a slave he so hard that he went into shock,” he said.  “She begged me to save his life.  As soon as he came to, she started torturing him again."  He drew up his knees and leaned his head into it.  "He's probably dead by now," his muffled voice said.

      Rose clucked sympathetically, but Animal said harshly, "You're exhausted and you're pushing yourself too hard.  This isn't your precious Harmony.  We'll use you and throw you away. That's what we do."

       Gabriel looked up, bleary eyed. "I'm a healer," he said.  "I save people's lives. That’s what I do."

       "Then make them sign a contract," Animal growled.  "No torture for a month, or something.  That should get them to leave you alone."

       Gabriel smiled at that, a trifle bitterly.  "Jonquil suggested the same solution when I met him," he said.

       Animal looked to the ceiling.  "The elements save me from mimicking fat, stupid men," he said.  Rose giggled, then stopped herself.  

       Mariah watched this whole scene with amazement.  She felt panicked.  This mindgame was so strange and so elaborate, she would surely lose herself in it.  She wished, desperately, that she could go to sleep and wake up and find herself someplace that she understood. 

       Suddenly Gabriel was next to her, holding her hand, squeezing it gently. "Breathe," he reminded her.  She found her face was wet.  She had been crying without realizing it.

       "I'm not afraid of you," she said, fiercely. 

       "I know you're not," Gabriel responded.  "You're tired and in pain, and it's hard to think straight."  He added, "Breathing will help."  He set an example for her, breathing deep into his diaphragm and then his lungs.

       Mariah just looked at him in amazement.  He seemed to know exactly what she was thinking.  Could he read her mind?  Could all masters and mistresses do that?

       Animal laughed a little meanly.  "Look at her, Gabriel," he said.  "The kinder you are to her the more you terrify her."  He amended, "Oh yeah, except she doesn't get scared." 

       Mariah glared at him.  Animal laughed again, but Gabriel shushed him and then went back to his breathing exercise, still holding Mariah's hand.  Mariah, without realizing it, found herself matching his breath.  A deep intake hurt her ribs, and she stopped.  Gabriel, with his eyes closed, was immediately aware of the change.  "Tomorrow I’ll teach you breathing exercises,” he said. “Today I’ll tell you a story.”  And he began to tell her about his home, a land with no slaves, where everyone did their share of work and received what they needed in return, and every child lived with its parents, and every adult chose how to live, and with whom.  It was a lovely story, Mariah thought, as her eyes fluttered closed, as good as the stories of wood nymphs she remembered from the fields.   

       Chapter 13:  A choice and a consequence

       Mariah was running, then fleeing, through a fallow field she did not recognize.  She came to a stream and tried to hurdle it, but her legs wouldn’t move properly.  She started to put her hands out to break her fall but they, too, were stuck.  She awoke with a start, her heart pounding madly.   As in her dream her limbs would not obey.  They were held – no, tied – down.  Panicked, she flailed about until she banged the back of her head on the platform on which she lay, and saw stars. 

       Through sheer force of will she held herself still, except for the trembling that she could not control. When she could no longer hear her pulse pounding in her ears, she slowly tried to take stock.  Her legs were spread wide apart and her ankles tied down, and her wrists shackled near her hips.  Other than that, she was not restrained.  She raised herself up onto her elbows and looked cautiously around. 

       She was on a sleeping platform, alone.  On either side of her were drab low walls that did not reach the ceiling.  Past her feet was a corridor, and beyond it another low wall. 

      She heard pleading from not far away.  A boy’s voice, begging someone to stop whatever they were doing to him.  But she didn’t hear the slash or cut of a whip.

     

      A mistress walked through the corridor past her, but paid her no mind.  A moment later a slave walked by.  Mariah cleared her throat.  “Excuse me,” she said, but the slave did not turn his head or slow his pace. 

     

      Mariah wondered how long she had been tied to the table, and if she had been left here to die, alone and untended.  One of the cornfield masters had had a boy killed that way.  He locked him in a cabin and forbade the other slaves to bring him food or water.  He died in about five days.  Mariah couldn't recall what he was being punished for. 

     

      Suddenly she remembered Master Jonas.  The malice, as cold as the water he sprayed on her body and then inside it.  And his threat to kill her.  As she heard the boy’s voice, begging again, Mariah wondered if it wouldn't be better to provoke Master Jonas into carrying out his threat. 

       No, a voice from inside Mariah said, I want to live. 

       Mariah leaned back and closed her eyes.  The boy’s begging rose to a shriek.  Rolanda had lived through this mindgame and had escaped beyond the walls.  But the mindgame had continued even then, Mariah realized.  Rolanda was surely dead by now.

      “No despair,” Mariah told herself fiercely.

     

      She listened for clues as to where she was or what would come next, but could hear only murmurs of sound from beyond the low walls.  She could no longer hear the boy, but there were conversations whose words she could not make out.  Perhaps someone whimpering.  At least she was not alone, she told herself.

       A slave appeared, rolling a table on wheels in front of him.  Wordlessly he stopped in front of Mariah, cranked a lever which raised the back end of her platform up and moved her to a sitting position.  He untied her hands and handed her a bowl of lukewarm gruel.  As she took it she whispered to him, "Are you allowed to talk?"  He looked unsurprised by this question, but shook his head and opened his mouth wide. Inside, his tongue was only a stub. 

      Mariah’s stomach churned at the sight, but the slave put the spoon into her hand as if she were simple and pantomimed that she must eat.  She dipped the spoon into the gruel and barely managed to get it into her mouth.  She concentrated on not vomiting.  Another spoonful, more concentration.  She couldn’t take a third. 

      The slave seemed satisfied with her efforts.  He gave her a cup of water and indicated that she should drink it.  She was parched, and the water helped the gruel settle.  The slave tied her arms again, leaving her sitting up, and moved on, expressionless.

       Mariah looked around but could see nothing beyond the short walls surrounding her, and the ceiling that gave away no secrets.  Occasionally slaves or people walked by, but they did not look at her.  “They fed me,” Mariah told herself several times.  “I’ll not die today.” 

      Panic gave way to boredom that was even worse.  Occasionally Mariah tested the bonds that tied her wrists and ankles, but not with any real hope that they would give way.  And even if they did, what would she do? 

       The wall.  If she could get free, could she make it to the wall?  Mariah thought of what she knew of the geography of Riviera.  It seemed certain that she was still in the mansion which was in the dead center of Riviera.  The wall encircled Riviera, but was miles and miles away.  It had taken the rider hours to bring her here on a horse, and the cornfields were closer to the mansion than to the wall. 

       Yet, it was not all farmland between the mansion and the wall.  There were woods and wild places.  If she could get to them, could she hide there? 

       She sighed and shook her head at what she knew was foolishness.  Even if she could untie her bonds, she would never make it out of this strange room.

      The tongueless slave returned to Mariah twice, each time giving her a bowl of gruel and a cup of water. After the third meal Mariah dozed. Through her sleep she could hear the cart making its way through the aisle yet again.  Someone was shaking her arm.  She immediately jerked awake.  It was an older slave, a female, large and muscular.  "Toilet," she said.  Mariah saw that she pushed a bucket on wheels with a seat on top, like a portable latrine. 

       Mariah shook her head.  "I'm not allowed," she said.

       "Sure you are, honey," the slave said.  "Everyone uses the toilet.  You don't need special permission for that."  She began to untie Mariah's restraints.

       Mariah felt her face burn red.  "No," she said.  "It's a punishment.  He said I couldn't for 24 hours."

       The woman clucked.  "What did you do to deserve that?" she asked.

       Mariah said nothing.  The woman was just a slave, and Mariah did not have to answer her.  She didn't see the frown of annoyance on the slave’s face as she patted Mariah just above her sex place.  "Do you have to go something awful?" she asked.

       Until that moment, Mariah hadn't. But now she felt that if she didn't pee she would burst. 

       "I'll tell you what," the woman said.  "You just sit up here on the toilet and pretend.  It'll make you feel better."

       Mariah shrank away from her.  "No,” she said.

       The woman's eyes narrowed but she said pleasantly, "It's the rules, honey.  Everyone has to sit on the toilet, whether or not they go. Otherwise, I get punished.  That wouldn't be fair, now would it?" 

       Defeated, Mariah stepped onto the floor, gasping at the stiffness in her muscles, and then onto the toilet platform.

       "There, now," the woman said soothingly.  "You close your eyes and relax.  I'll just tie you here for a minute and come right back."

       Mariah didn't react as the woman tied her ankles apart, affixing them to cuffs jutting from the bottom of the toilet box, or when she tied her knees open.  But when she took her right hand and put it in a container of warm water, Mariah jerked her hand away, splashing.  "What are you doing to me?"  she shouted.

       The noise brought a mistress over, who frowned at Mariah as she grasped her whip.  "What's this racket, Shinelle?" she asked sternly. 

       The slave woman answered, "This farm cunt won't let me do my job, Mistress.  I keep telling her, these are the rules, but she just makes trouble."

       The mistress glared at Mariah.  "I don't like to punish other's pickings in here," she said, "but if I hear one more sound out of you I'll beat you right back to the farm.  Do you understand me?"

       "Yes, mistress," Mariah said. 

       As the mistress strode away, Shinelle tied both of Mariah's arms in bowls of warm water, saying softly, "Don't make trouble.  You just go along with me, everything will work out fine."  Then she walked away.

       Mariah felt the need to pee like waves in her body.  Her very jaw tingled with the feel of it.  She closed her eyes and tried to think of anything else, or to concentrate on the noises echoing around her, but nothing helped.

       Suddenly there was a body behind her, and breasts pressing into her back.  Hands came around to her front and began rubbing her where her hair grew, above her sex place.  Shinelle said in her ear, "Just relax, and neither one of us will be punished."

       Mariah felt as if her pee was streaming through her body like blood.  Shinelle’s hand moved lower, to her clitoris, touching her there.  “Please, stop,” Mariah begged, trying to close her legs that were tied open.  Then Shinelle was licking the inside of Mariah’s ear and blowing softly into it.  Mariah could stand it no more.  With a groan, she let herself pee.  She felt as if it would never stop.  She did not notice that Shinelle had moved away.   

       When the stream stopped, Mariah opened her eyes.  Master Jonas was standing there, hands on his hips, staring at her, his eyes ice.

       "Forgive me, Master," Mariah said hopelessly.

       Shinelle snorted from behind her.  "Now she begs for forgiveness, Master," she said.  "You should have heard her a few minutes ago begging me to let her pee. I told her no, but a mistress came over and told me to let her do it just to shut her up."

       "No," Mariah whispered.  "That's not true."

       "Shut up, scum," her Master said.  He turned to the slave woman.  "Tell me, Shinelle, you see these farm cunts come and go.  How would you punish her?"

       Shinelle smiled in satisfaction.  "This one is no better than an animal, Master," she said.  "I say no point in having a master like yourself break her in.  Give her to a dog."

       Master Jonas actually laughed.  "You are a delight," he said.  "Go to the exercise yards and bring me the finest looking dog you can find."  Shinelle dropped to the floor and touched her forehead all the way down before she stood and ran down the corridor.

       "Master, I'm sorry," Mariah pleaded.

       Without warning Master Jonas punched her in her left breast, so hard that Mariah would have tumbled backwards off the latrine seat if she were not tied to it.  “No talking,” he said.  He moved behind her and began to touch her, on her back, on her shoulders, on her breasts, on her stomach, on her thighs.  His touch was gentle and yet aggressive.  Mariah hated it.  She concentrated on not moving.  Her body felt hot, as if she was in a sweatbox.

       It seemed like an eternity later when Shinelle came down the corridor leading a large brown and black dog by the leash.  She handed the leash over to Master Lucas and untied Mariah.  “On the floor,” he told Mariah.  Mariah dove down and lay on her stomach.  With his foot Master Lucas rolled Mariah over onto her back.  "Bring a cushion," he ordered Shinelle.  Then he turned back to Mariah.

       "Shinelle is right, you deserve to be broken in by a dog," Master Jonas said to Mariah. 

       "Yes, master," Mariah said.

       Master Jonas kicked her in the side with his boot.  "No talking,” he said again.  He glowered over her to see if she would groan or move.  When she lay perfectly still, he continued, "Unfortunately, since you haven't been fully tested, I can't punish you as you deserve, yet."

       Shinelle returned then with a cushion, which Master Jonas indicated she should put under Mariah's head.  "Bend your knees and open them," he said to Mariah.  She obeyed immediately.

       "Have you ever seen a hard penis?" he asked Mariah. 

       Mariah remembered a mistress tormenting one of the slave boys in the room where Master Jonas had found her.  She nodded her head. 

       "Good," Master Jonas said. "Have you ever seen a man come?"

       "No, master," Mariah pleaded.  "I've been good, I swear." 

       Master Jonas kicked her again, but not as hard as before.  "I know you," he said. "You've never been good."  He continued, "If you were good, the first time you saw a man come it would be to bring you pleasure, and the man.  But you have lost that privilege.  Because you are nothing more than an animal, your first experience of pleasure will be when this dog comes in your mouth."  He pulled the dog’s hind legs over Mariah's chest.  "You will put your mouth around the penis.  You will caress it and suck on it.  If you obey, your punishment will be over.  If you bite him or do anything to make him pull back, I'll kill you on a cross.  Do you understand?"

       Mariah nodded frantically.  "Yes, master," she said.

       "Good," Master Lucas said.  He prodded the dog forward.  "Put your mouth around its penis, gently."

       Mariah obeyed, willing herself not to gag or disobey in any way.  The thing was hairy and disgusting, but this punishment was merely revolting, not painful. 

      Suddenly, two things happened at once. The dog's organ began to widen and elongate in her mouth, almost choking her, and she felt something wet and warm, a tongue, on her own sex, licking her slowly.  Frantically she jerked her head back, but reminded herself fiercely that she wanted to live.  She lifted her mouth again to the dog's organ, hoping her master had not noticed.

       The dog whimpered and began moving its hips up and down, forcing its penis deeper into her mouth.  Mariah's nose was pressed against its hairy belly and she felt that she would suffocate, until she learned to gasp for breath when the dog pulled back to begin a deeper thrust.  "That's it," she heard Master Lucas say.  "Suck on it." 

       Moving her lips around her teeth so she wouldn't bite the dog's penis, Mariah sucked, still fighting for every breath.  It seemed to go on and on.  Her jaw ached with the effort of keeping her mouth wide enough.  She tried to pretend this was not happening to her, that she was still back on the farm with her cohort, that she was young and innocent, that she had never met Rolanda, but the licking of her own cunt was interrupted by a bite there, which jolted her back into this reality.  She in turn bit the dog, but not so hard that the dog's pleasure was interrupted. 

       Suddenly there was a wet goo in the back of her mouth, like thin gruel.  Mariah choked and sputtered as the dog went soft inside her.  "Swallow it," Master Lucas ordered.  She did her best, still keeping her mouth wide so as not to injure the dog's softening organ which he did not seem inclined to remove from her mouth.  Minutes passed before he pulled out.  Giving her an apologetic look, he lay down next to her and immediately went to sleep.  Master Lucas put his foot under Shinelle's throat, pulling her head away from Mariah's cunt.  "I knew you could obey if you tried," Lucas said to Mariah.  "Thank me for teaching you that."

       "Thank you, Master," Mariah said.        

CHAPTER 14: Inside and out

       The next morning, as he had promised, Master Gabriel taught Mariah breathing exercises, and movements to strengthen her injured arm.  Mariah was exhausted afterwards and fell asleep for several hours.  When she awoke, Rose was sitting cross-legged on the floor, shelling a large pile of peas.  With a quiet smile she cleaned up, and then offered to help Mariah take a bath.

       Mariah did not admit to Rose that, except for the old metal tub in the cornfield, filled by bucket, she had never taken a bath before.  Most masters and mistresses would require that their houseslaves take a very quick shower periodically, but a bath was a luxury for favored pets. 

       Rose filled the tub and Mariah stepped in and sank down into the water.  Its warmth stung her cuts at first, but she ignored the discomfort, soaping every inch she could reach, and, to protect her elbow, allowing Rose to wash and rinse her hair.  Mariah realized that the atrocious itchiness she been suffering was not just her wounds healing, but the filth that covered her body.  The bathwater was gray.  Rose giggled, drained and refilled the bath, and they started the process over again.  Mariah's skin, in those places where it was neither burned nor bruised nor cut, had a pinkish tinge.

       Rose, sitting on the edge of the tub with her feet in the water, started to wash Mariah’s upper back with a washcloth.  Mariah closed her eyes, enjoying the pleasant, relaxing sensation.  Suddenly she started and in a quick movement pivoted and grabbed Rose’s wrist. She stared at her, hard.  “What have they done to me?”  she demanded.

     

      “N... nothing,” said Rose.  “Th. . . They saved your life.”

     

      Mariah narrowed her eyes.  “What are they saving me for?” she asked.  She leaned toward Rose.  “Why don’t I want to fuck you?”

     

       “I don’t know,” Rose said.  “I’m just a rag.”  

      

      Mariah loosened her hold on Rose’s wrist but did not let go.  “That’s not what I meant,” she said.  “The way you were washing me . . .  I should be burning.  But I’m not.  Not for you.  Not for Master Gabriel or Master Animal.  It’s like I woke up and I’m back on the farm, not broken in.”  She placed her hands deliberately on Rose’s knees and pushed them apart, and looked at her crotch.  “And you’re not even wet,” she said. 

     

      Rose looked nervously at Mariah’s hands, still on her knees, but didn’t remove them.  “It’s the gruel,” she said softly. 

     

      “The gruel?” Mariah asked.   “Master Animal told me that you don’t even eat it.”

     

      “I don’t, mostly.” Rose said.  “And neither did you, when you were unconscious.  You’ve only been back on gruel for a few days, and you’re not eating much.  Not enough to make you burn.”

       Mariah thought about this.  Of course she had known for a long time that it was the gruel that made slaves crave sex, sometimes to the exclusion of all other cravings.  It would make sense that if she stopped eating it those urges would go away. 

       To Rose’s relief, Mariah took her hands off her knees.  “Are you dried up?” Mariah asked her. 

       Rose didn’t answer for a minute.  “In a way,” she said at last.  “I don’t look at a cucumber anymore and wish I dared to put it inside me, to get some relief.  And I don’t cry because maybe I’ll never be allowed to come again.  But when I think about having sex with Master Animal . . .” She blushed.  “I’m not dried up, no.”

       “Does he fuck you?” Mariah asked.  “Or is he too much of a pansy for that?”

        “Every night,’ Rose said solemnly.  “We both come once and then he goes to sleep.”

       “You come every night?” Mariah asked disbelievingly.

       Rose nodded.  “Sometimes he eats me,” she said.

       Mariah stared at her in open astonishment.  She had heard of pansy masters, but this was too much. Master Animal must have unnatural feelings for Rose. 

      She remembered the promise she had made to herself, to spread the truth among as many slaves as she could, to start with Rose, to curdle Master Animal’s sweet cream.  How much more effective it would be if he thought he cared for her. As Mariah started to stand up, she said, "I want to tell you something."

       Rose tsked softly.  "First we'll dry you off and get you into bed," she said.  "Master Gabriel says that even little things will wear you out."  Rose's voice was gentle and sweet as ever, but there was a firmness in it that made Mariah obey.  She didn't protest as Rose toweled her dry and led her back to the bed. Once Rose was satisfied that Mariah was well-settled, she began combing out her hair again, and said, "What did you want to tell me?"

       Mariah said nothing for a time.  Was Rose part of the mindgame?  A slave-spy, who would repeat every word to her masters?  Almost certainly.  The girl had no spirit with which to rebel or refuse to be used against her own kind.  Nevertheless, she had to try to reach her, to spoil her for her master.  The worst that would happen is that the mindgame would end sooner. 

       Mariah tried to remember what Rolanda had told her, so long ago, when she hadn't wanted to hear it.  Was there ever a time when she was as young and sweet as Rose was now?  She took a breath, calming herself.  "Did they tell you why I was being punished?" she asked.

       "Shsh," Rose said.  "We don't need to talk about that."

       Mariah yanked her hair out of Rose's grasp and turned to look at her.  "Answer me," she said fiercely.  "Did they tell you?"

       Rose started back, her scared look returning.  "Yes," she said, not meeting Mariah’s eyes.

       Mariah leaned closer to Rose, blocking Rose's fear out of her mind.  "It was because I was outside the gates.  I escaped, and I was free."

       "I know," Rose whispered, trembling.

       Mariah grabbed Roses' bicep with her good hand.  "Whatever they told you about me, it was a lie," she said. "I was free!"

       "I know," Rose whispered again, ashen-faced. 

       

       Mariah went in for the kill.  "You could escape, too," she said.  "You could be free."

       A derisive snort came from the doorway. "Free to die," Animal said.  "Free to starve to death while you ponder which berries are poison.  Free to bleed to death when you fall from a tree you climbed to escape the packs of wolves.  Free to contract dysentery from drinking the wrong water.  And," he added, entering the room, "That's assuming you beat the five hours it took the sage Mariah to get caught by the hunters so they could exquisitely torture her."

       Mariah flung Rose away from her, trembling with rage.  "It is no worse to be tortured in the field by the hunters for a few days than to be tortured every day in the mansion, from one mind game to another! The difference in lifespan is only a few years."

       To Mariah's chagrin, Animal laughed.  "I doubt you'll find a convert in Rose," he said.  "She has sense enough to know when she's well off."

       Mariah looked over at Rose, who sat at the head of the bed, her back to the wall, frozen.  Mariah jeered, at her, “So you've found yourself a pansy master who can't be bothered to whip you.  How long do you think he'll keep you?  A few more months, if you're lucky?  And then it'll be back to the exchange.  Do you think your next master or mistress will be as kind?  Or will you get someone who likes the ones who cry easily?"

       As if on cue Rose's eyes filled with tears and Mariah turned to give Animal a triumphant look.  She stopped cold when she saw the whip in his hand, his arm raised.  Then she said, "Go ahead.  Show Rose what a kind, merciful master you are." 

       Animal lowered his arm.  "Go fix dinner, Rose," he said, not taking his eyes off Mariah. 

       Rose was crying in earnest now.  "Please, master, don't hurt her," she pleaded as she stood to obey his order. 

         "Shsh," Animal said.  "I won't."  Rose stumbled from the room.  Animal continued to look disdainfully at Mariah for a few moments, before he turned and followed Rose out of the room, firmly closing the door behind him.

       

CHAPTER:  Never by choice

       Master Jonas tied Mariah back into her cot and left her.  While he was gone Mariah had time to think. Was this the mindgame Rolanda had told her of?  It was clear to her that Shinelle had set her up, perhaps by prearrangement with Master Jonas, and that she had taken pleasure in it. The episode with the dog had been scary when she was not sure if she would suffocate, and the ticklish pleasure in her cunt from Shinelle licking her there had added to her torture. 

      And for what reason? “To humiliate me,” Mariah thought.  “And yet, I am not humiliated.  I did nothing wrong.”  She thought again of her cohort torturing the rabbit  She had stood up to them, stood against her friends, because what they were doing was wrong, and cruel, and needless.

     

      She was the rabbit to Master Jonas, she realized, a victim to be tortured to pass the time.  And she knew that he could easily turn her into a torturer.  She had hurt other slaves at the command of the cornfield masters and mistresses.  Whipped them, pulled out their hair a few hairs at a time, put them in a stockade.  But not by choice.  Never by choice.  She would never be the one to hold the rabbit over the fire, or to idly stand by as others did it.  Not by choice.  And while she would no doubt be forced again to torture other slaves, she would never take a perverse pleasure in it like Shinelle clearly did.  Maybe it had all been prearranged and Shinelle had been compelled by Master Jonas to force Mariah to pee; but Shinelle had enjoyed it, savored it even, and added to it. 

     

      Mariah swore to herself:  whatever Master Jonas would do to her body, no matter how he tortured her or made her cry or shriek or beg, no matter if he forced her to torture other slaves, for her it would never be by choice. 

CHAPTER

       When Mariah's was not left alone again with Rose, she told herself her disappointment was because of the missed opportunity to proselytize freedom.  Another slave, an older cunt named Chilla, occasionally brought her a tray or helped her to the necessary, but was largely uncommunicative.  Mariah gathered that she belonged to a master in a neighboring suite.

       Mariah still slept more than she woke.  When she was awake she meticulously did the exercises Master Gabriel had taught her.  Her arm was almost healed, and, although the breathing and strengthening exercises hurt, she could feel herself getting stronger, mindgame or no.

       One morning Master Gabriel watched her do her exercises, occasionally correcting an angle or encouraging her to do more.  When she finished, Gabriel casually asked her if she would like to go for a walk.  Mariah was surprised by her own eagerness.  She hadn't realized how stir-crazy she was going.

       Mariah leaned on Gabriel for support, staggering.  Crossing the threshold into the living room, she felt an echo of the same surge of joy she had felt when she had run through the gates of Riviera so many weeks ago. 

       Animal sprawled on a couch, pretending disinterest, while Rose, assiduously massaging his feet, only glanced up with a shy smile before looking away.  Mariah let go of Gabriel and took a few steps on her own before she stumbled and had to grab at his arm.  If the others noticed her gasp of pain, they gave no sign.

       Gabriel led her to a strange chair with wheels instead of legs.  He said off-handedly, "I thought it would be more fun for you to walk outside and get some fresh air.  I can wheel you through the corridors so you don't get worn out."  Mariah sank into the chair.  Gabriel stood behind and pushed.  When the wheelchair moved forward Mariah gasped, grabbing at the armrests.  "I'll go slow," Gabriel said encouragingly.

       Gabriel had long since learned the twists and turns of the corridors near his suite, and in only a few minutes had pushed Mariah to the nearest entryway. Just outside the door he helped her to stand up, and put the wheelchair aside.  Mariah turned her face to the sun, soaking it up, breathing the air.  Gabriel helped her down the two or three stairs leading from the door.  Six or seven humans were coming up the walkway towards them, laughing carelessly.  A few had slaves on leashes.

       "Gabriel!" one of them shouted.  "Come entertain us!"  Then the group stopped at once, seeing Mariah.

       "Is that your cunt?" a honey-haired mistress asked after an awkward pause.  Mariah let go her grip on Gabriel and started to fall to her knees.  Gabriel stopped her, putting his arm around her waist.  "This is Mariah," he said. 

       The mistress came forward and looked her up and down.  "Standard position," she ordered. 

       Mariah automatically obeyed her command, raising her hands to the back of her neck.  Shooting pain went through her chest as she did so, and she gasped, and stumbled, falling out of Gabriel's protective encirclement. The mistress raised her whip and flicked it on Mariah's buttocks.  Although the blow wasn't hard, it caused Mariah to fall forward onto her knees, banging them painfully. 

       "Stop it!" Gabriel shouted.  "Leave her alone!"

       The mistress flipped her hair at Gabriel coquettishly.  "Don't tell me you're under her spell," she said.  "She's nothing but a rag."  Mariah felt her face go blank.

       One of the mistress’s companions said, "Not a rag, Darla.  A rescued runaway.  Didn't you hear?  Gabriel plucked her off a cross."  He smirked. 

       Gabriel tried to place himself between Mariah and the group, but Mariah stood up, painfully, on her own.  One of mistresses had a slave dick on a leash.  Mariah looked him straight in the eye.  "That's right," she said.  "I escaped through the gates and I was free. That's why they punished me."  She paused and added, "It was worth it."

       As one, the group of masters and mistresses took out their whips.  The man who had spoken, who was closest to her, growled, "You filthy cunt," and kicked her, hard, in the shin.  Mariah fell over again, landing on her bad arm, and cried out. 

       Gabriel pushed the master away.  "Leave her alone, I tell you," he said, his voice low and calm.  The master saw his face and backed away.  "No harm done," he said, and headed inside, followed by the rest of his group.  The slave dick looked at Mariah as he crawled by.  "Eyes down!" his mistress shouted furiously, kicking him in the balls.  He groaned but continued to crawl.

       Gabriel knelt down by Mariah.  "I'm so sorry," he said.  "Are you okay?"  Mariah refused to look at him, embarrassed by the stinging in her eyes.  Gabriel took her good hand.  "Breathe," he said.  Mariah complied, breathing as deeply as her injured ribs would let her, until she felt the new pain was under control.  Gabriel was still holding her hand.  "You have so much courage you put everyone I know to shame," he said.  Then he added, pulling a strand of hair off her face, "But maybe you could keep the outreach to other slaves down until you're a little stronger."

       Mariah jerked away from his touch and said bitterly, "You won't let me talk to Rose, master.  I need to reach out where I can."

       Gabriel looked at her in confusion.  "Won't let you...  You can say what you like to Rose, surely you must know that."

       Now it was Mariah's turn to be confused.  "You mean they didn't tell you?" 

       "Tell me what?" Gabriel asked.

       "About the other day... What I said to Rose.  And to Master Animal."  When Gabriel shook his head, she added, "But you've kept her away from me since then."

       Gabriel took her hand again and said gently, "There's an old man who lives in the other suite in our quad.  He lapsed into a coma the other day.  Rose is helping to take care of him."  He added, almost petulantly, "If you wanted to see her, you only needed to ask."

       Mariah looked him in the eye, trying to read him, to decipher him.  It seemed such a strange lie to tell.  Was it part of the mindgame? Or an odd, coincidental truth?

       Gabriel smiled ruefully.  "What would happen if you trusted me?" he asked.

       "Torture," Mariah answered automatically.  "Pain.  Death."'

       "Then by all means, don't trust me," Gabriel said.  He stood up.  "You landed on your arm.  Does it hurt?"

       Mariah nodded and Gabriel sighed. He helped her into the wheelchair and wheeled her back through the corridor.  "Maybe Animal can suggest a private place for a walk tomorrow," he said.

CHAPTER 15:  TASTING SOMETHING NEW

       The mute slave untied Mariah and indicated that she should stand.  He had her place her feet into holes in stiffened leather.  When he pulled it up her legs she realized it was a sort of garment, similar to panties a mistress might wear, except that it ballooned out at her crotch so the leather did not touch her skin there and it kept her legs apart.  The mute tied a cloth gag in place, loosely as if it was meant to be more symbolic than practical, and cuffed her hands behind her neck.  He shoved her to start her walking.

       Mariah caught glimpses of other slaves tied to platforms as she had been, boys and girls alike and all of the same age as she.  At the end of the corridor the mute turned her and led her to a door which, to Mariah’s surprise, opened to outside.  The sun stabbed at her eyes. 

      She was in an enclosed pen.  A number of slaves, similarly clad with the strange crotch garment, and similarly bound and gagged, trudged in a circle around the perimeter.  With another shove, the mute indicated that Mariah should do the same, and then he left her.

       Mariah’s arms soon started to ache and her position made her feel embarrassed by her breasts, which jutted out in front of her in a way she had never noticed before.  “What do I care?” she asked herself in annoyance as she stumbled and almost fell over. “What these slaves think of me is nothing.” She wondered if she would feel the same if Samson, or any of the rest of her cohort, even Sefka, could see her.  Homesickness washed over her, and her eyes blurred.

       She walked in a circle for an hour, until the pain in her shoulders was almost unbearable.  When the mute slave came to get her she nearly cried with relief.  At her cubicle, when he unbound her wrists and allowed her to lower her arms, she groaned with relief.  He patted her shoulder and gave her a sympathetic smile before he removed her crotch cover and her gag.  “Thank you,” Mariah said very softly, so as not to get him in trouble.  He nodded slightly, tied her to her table, and was gone.

       The walk in the pen was repeated twice a day for several days.  Each time, although the pain in her arms became less, Mariah’s embarrassment grew.  She imagined that the other slaves were staring at her breasts, or at her covered crotch, and she found herself staring at them in turn. 

       There was a tingling sensation in her crotch, sort of like having to pee, but constant and getting worse.  She longed to rub herself there, but was always bound in such a way that she could not reach that area, and her legs were tied apart.

       At last Master Jonas returned.  Without a word to her, he placed his hand on her inner thigh, tied open as always.  Then he put the index finger of his other hand at the entrance to her vagina and pushed it in slightly.  He pulled it out, looked at it, and frowned.  “Are you eating?” he asked her.

       “Yes, my lord,” Mariah answered.

       “Well, not enough.  You need to eat more,” he said, and left.

       At her next meal the mute slave handed her a larger portion than before, and hovered near her to make sure that she ate it all.

       Over the next days the tingling in her crotch grew worse.  When she was awake she thought of ways to escape her bonds so that she could touch herself.  When she slept she dreamed of doing so.  When Shinelle came with the portable latrine Mariah remembered how Shinelle had licked her crotch when the dog’s penis had been in her mouth.  The tingling grew to a burning. Mariah could not bear to look at Shinelle.

       Master Jonas returned, and as before pushed his index finger into her vagina.  This time he looked pleased.  “Soon you’ll be ripe enough,” he said, before he walked away.           

***

       The next morning Gabriel wheeled Mariah to a different entrance to the mansion.  It was early enough that the lawn was mostly deserted.  Gabriel seemingly aimlessly led Mariah on a walk parallel to the mansion. Mariah enjoyed the feeling of sun on her face and the fresh air.  It made her feel strong and healthy.  The grass was short, and was cool and soft beneath her feet.

       Gabriel came to a sudden stop, staring at the lawn.  He bent over and picked something green.  Turning to Mariah he said, "Do you know what this is?"

       "Clover, my lord," said Mariah, expressionless.

       Gabriel shook his head.  "Clover is a darker green than this, and less stringy.  This is sorrel."  Mariah mouthed the strange word.  "It's delicious," Gabriel added, putting a couple of its tiny leaves in his mouth.  He handed some to Mariah.  "Try it." 

       Mariah took a step back from him, her lips clamped closed as if she thought he would force her mouth open.

       Gabriel looked at her appraisingly.  "What Animal told you the other day was true," he said.  "You can't survive outside of Riviera on your own.  Not unless you know how to take care of yourself. How to recognize food.  How to build a fire.  How to trap animals, and skin and cook them.  You would starve to death in a week if you don't know these things."

       "You told me Master Animal said nothing about this, Master," Mariah said, almost triumphantly.

       Gabriel rolled his eyes.  "He told me last night, when I asked him," he said.  "And he was right.  It would be suicide for you to try to live out there right now."

       "What are you saying, Master?" Mariah asked bitterly.  "That you'll teach me what I need to know to run away, and then drop me off five miles outside the gate and leave me on my own?"

       Gabriel smiled sadly.  "I don't know," he said.  "Even I couldn’t survive on my own for long without provisions from home and a good horse with a lot of sense.  No matter how much I teach you, if I just dropped you off it would be murder.  But if I assume that if you get a chance to run away again you'll take it, then I have a responsibility to teach you what I can."

       Mariah felt the mindgame rushing in at her again, a feeling of vertigo that was beginning to seem normal to her.  She remembered what Animal had said to her when she first woke up.  Playing the mindgame through to the end gave her a chance.  She tentatively looked at the sorrel, sniffed it, tore off half a leaf and put it in her mouth.  She puckered up and spit it out.  "It's sour!" she said accusingly.

       Gabriel smiled.  "Your taste buds are weak from that bland gruel you eat," he said.  "Rose could cure you of that.  She's an excellent cook."

       "I can cook, Master," Mariah said defensively.

       "Aah, but can you eat?" Gabriel said.  "Rose isn't afraid to eat her own cooking. Are you?"

       "I'm not afraid of anything," Mariah said fiercely.  She broke off three sorrel leaves with her fingernail and popped them in her mouth.  Gabriel looked away quickly to hide a smile of triumph.  Trickery or not, he had finally figured out how to get through to her.

***

      Mariah woke with a start.  Master Jonas was moving a lever next to the platform on which she was tied, causing the platform to split at its bottom and spread her legs farther.  Before they were spread wide enough to be really uncomfortable rather than just shameful, Master Jonas stopped.  He came around the side of the table and sat on its edge, taking her pinioned hand in his.  "Do you hate me?" he asked her softly.

       With all her heart.  "No, master, I only want to please you," Mariah whispered.

       "Shsh," Master Jonas said.  "It's okay that you hate me.  It will make my victory more complete."  He unlocked the cuff that held her wrist, and stroked her hand, and then held it.  He put his other hand on her breast, resting it there lightly.  Mariah was electrified.  Her clitoris was pinging. 

      Master Jonas spoke softly, almost dreamily, gently, as he tapped his fingertips all over her breast. Mariah’s heart pounded, and she was gulping air. "Sometimes there is a mix-up among the babies,” Master Jonas was saying..  “Human babies are switched with slave babies, and brought up by accident as slaves, on the farm. This factory is the last test."  He looked at Mariah intently and slowly brought her hand to his mouth, kissing and then licking her palm.  Mariah felt a though he were licking her crotch directly, as Shinelle had.  Master Jonas slowly lowered her hand back down, continuing to massage it with his thumb. "You see, Mariah, a human being would have the dignity and the strength of character to resist temptation.  But a cunt would grasp the first chance she is given to have an orgasm."  He looked at her carefully.  "Which do you think you are?"

       For a brief moment Mariah forgot her body’s urges as a shining hope flared in her:  she was indeed a human being, switched at birth.  Her life had been a mistake.  She should have been raised in the mansion, by parents, not on the farm.  But she knew immediately that this was the mindgame Rolanda had spoken of.  She also knew that Master Jonas must be made to think that she believed him, or things would go much worse for her.  "I don't know, master," she said.

       Master Jonas smiled.  "Then we must find out, my dear," he said.  "The test is this: If you can go for a single hour without coming, you will pass the test and be declared a human being.  But if you have an orgasm, you are declared for all time to be a dirty slave cunt.  Do you understand?"

       “No, master,” Mariah said.  “I don’t know what an orgasm is.”

       “What the dog did in your mouth,” Master Jonas said.  Mariah was still confused.  She didn’t have  a penis.  How could she do that, or want it? 

       Master Jonas said no more.  He let go of Mariah’s hand and of her breast, and untied her legs and her other hand.  "I want you to turn over on your back and relax."  Mariah thought briefly about running.  Even if Master Jonas caught her immediately, he would take time to tie her down and to punish her.  That would surely run the clock.  But she dismissed the idea.  This is only a mindgame, she told herself.  She turned over.

       Master Jonas moved her hair off her shoulder.  Taking a bottle from his waistpack, he squirted her shoulders with oil and began to massage them, deeply, starting with the triangles next to her neck.  Mariah willed herself to fight him.  "Shsh," Master Jonas said, his fingers biting painfully into her muscles, "I told you to relax.  Disobedience won't help you."  Mariah continued to fight him, and he squeezed harder, causing a shooting pain in her head.  He pulled back and she gave in. 

      He went back to massaging her gently, soothing the muscles he had just tortured.  "Good girl," he said softly.  "You can't resist me."  He poured more oil onto her shoulders, rubbing gently in deep circles.  After a long time he moved slowly down her back, circling and then pushing his fingers deeply into her shoulder blades.  Mariah’s muscles spasmed and then suddenly relaxed into jelly.  "Good girl," Master Jonas said again, slowly moving down her spine, inch by inch, adding oil as he went, then pressing his fists gently into her lower back.  Moving lower still, he massaged both cheeks of her bottom, carefully oiling all over and in her crack.  He slid a slippery finger into her asshole, not too fast and not too hard.  Mariah whimpered.  "Shsh," Master Jonas said.  "That doesn't hurt, does it?"

       "No, Master," Mariah whispered.  Master Jonas pulled his finger out and went back to massaging her bottom cheeks, his thumbs between them and his fingers outside.  When another sound escaped her mouth, he moved down her left leg, covering it inch by inch with oil and his massaging hands.  Then he returned to her bottom, rubbing it again, again putting a finger in her asshole, this time a little deeper.  Mariah whimpered again, but this time not with fear but because it felt so, so good.  Master Jonas moved his finger in and out of her ass, slowly, not hurting her.  Then, so slowly, he brought his hands down her right leg, all the way to her toes.

       "Turn over," he ordered her in a soft, husky voice.  Mariah hastened to comply.  He stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.  "Slowly," he said, and he helped her turn onto her back and respread her legs.  Then, for what seemed like a long time to Mariah, he simply looked her in the eye, not touching her.  Mariah was afraid to look away, but also afraid she would get lost in him.  Almost imperceptibly he moved his head towards her and kissed her on the lips, opening her mouth his tongue, slowly exploring the inside of her upper lip.  The ache in Mariah's again vagina flared to a burning.  She groaned.  Master Jonas continued to kiss her, moving his hands to her neck, softly. He blew in her ear, as his hands found her breasts and caressed them gently, like butterflies.  Mariah heard a noise and realized it was herself, whimpering.

       "Where do you feel it?"  Master Jonas whispered in her ear.

       "Please, master, everywhere," Mariah said.

       "Here?" Master Jonas asked, gently cupping her pubic triangle with his hand.  She could only nod. 

       Master Jonas returned his hand to Mariah's breast, massaging it slightly harder than before, and then placed his lips over her nipple, sucking.  Mariah groaned out loud, over and over again. 

      With his other hand, Master Jonas slowly rubbed her all the way down her belly, back to her pubic bone, which he gently ran his fingers over, tickling her.  He placed his forefinger at the entrance to her vagina, but did not push in.  Rather, he moved his finger up her slit, slowly, stopping before he touched her clitoris, and then back down to her vagina.  He repeated this action, again, again, and again. Mariah’s sex place was soaking, as if she had peed.  Slowly Master Jonas moved his finger back up towards her clitoris, and stopped without touching it.  Not able to help herself, Mariah raised her hips, seeking contact.  Master Jonas moved his hand away.  He lifted his lips from her breast.  "Beg me for it," he said.

       In the corner of her mind that was able to retain control, to think rationally, Mariah thought of fighting.  But she knew this was the mindgame.  "Please, Master," she said.  "Please."

       Master Jonas returned to toying with her slit.  "Beg me to make you come," he said.  "Beg me to prove that you are a slave."  His finger came slowly up her slit, again stopping before her clitoris.

       "I beg you, Master," Mariah said.  "Make me come.  I am a slave."  With her left hand, Mariah crossed her fingers. 

      Slowly, Master Jonas moved his finger away from her clitoris and into the entrance of her vagina, not very deeply, and vibrated it there.  Then he took it back up the slippery path of her slit, and kept going, circling around her hard button, again, and again, closer and closer, until finally he was circling on top of her clitoris itself.  A convulsion shook Mariah, wave after wave.  Dimly she heard Master Jonas laugh, and felt him push his finger all the way into her vagina, which spasmed around it.  It hurt, but the pleasure was overwhelming, like a dream of freedom.          

       

CHAPTER 16:  OF FLOWERS AND HORSES

       Mariah held the crook of Gabriel’s arm.  She tried not to lean on it too heavily.  She could feel his warmth radiating through his shirtsleeve.  He smelled good.  Clean, like rain.  She had never particularly noticed the smell of a master before, except their breath when it was hot and rancid on her face.  The memory of Master Jonas flashed through her mind.  Involuntarily she clutched harder at Master Gabriel’s arm.

       He was telling her something about flowers.  Nasturtiums.  There was a bed of them, red and yellow and orange.  Their cheerfulness assaulted Mariah.  Edible, Gabriel was saying.  Spicy.  Then he turned to her and his face relaxed from earnest to gentle.  “You’re tired,” he said.  And she was.  He led her back to the wheelchair, which they had left by the entrance to the mansion.  It was no more than fifty yards from the nasturtiums, but by the time they got there Mariah was shaking.

      Just as she had sat down heavily, a runner came panting up to them, fell on his knees before Gabriel, and offered up a folded note.  Gabriel read it, frowned, and turned to Mariah.  "There's been an accident at the stable where I keep my horse," he said.  "I haven't time to take you home, and I daren't leave you here. Will you come?" 

       "I am yours to comm..." Mariah started to say.  But Gabriel gave her a look, and she was so tired.  "Yes, my lord," she amended.

       If Gabriel noted Mariah's brief concession to the mindgame, he gave no sign.  He started to push her chair over the grass, but it was bumpy and slow.  He backtracked to the paved walkway.  There was a slight curb onto the pavement which jolted the chair, giving Mariah a shock of pain through her ribs that made her gasp.  Gabriel ignored her, half-running with the chair towards the perimeter of the lawn and taking a right towards the stables.

       When the building came into view, Gabriel stopped, panting from his exertion.  He ran his fingers through his hair and breathed deeply several times.  Then he began to push Mariah's wheel contraption again, this time at a firm walk.

       They turned the corner to the building.  A slave cunt, with auburn flyaway hair, and so short that at first Mariah thought she was still a farm slave, ran up to them and skidded to her knees before them.  "Get up, Jordan," Gabriel said without breaking his stride, "and tell me what happened."

       Jordan rose without hesitation.  "It's Remarque," she said.  "He was riding Plantana out of the stable when something spooked her and she threw him.  He hit the back of his head on Master Stefan's glass window and was cut bad when it shattered.  Master Stefan won't let the vet look at him. He's waiting for you."

       As she said this they turned the corner into the stable.  A group of slaves were hovering near the entrance.  Gabriel started to push Mariah's wheel contraption through but stopped and turned to Jordan.  "This is Mariah," he said.  "Take care of her."

       Jordan nodded.  "Of course, my lord," she said respectfully.

       Gabriel hesitated for a moment, looking from Mariah to the crowd and back.  "Keep her out of trouble."

       Jordan nodded again.  "Don't worry, master," she said.  She flashed him a smile but looked towards the crowd.

       Gabriel gave her a little nod, and plunged into the circle of people.  They parted to let him through.

      A slave dick was laying flat on the ground on his back.  Master Stefan was kneeling on the ground next to him, naked from the waist up, holding his blood-soaked shirt to the area where the slave’s neck met his left shoulder.  When Stefan saw Gabriel he let out of a sigh of relief.  "Thank the first oath that idiot runner found you," he said, sounding ragged. 

       Gabriel knelt on the ground next to Stefan.  "How long ago did it happen?" he asked.

       "Half an hour or more," Stefan answered,  his voice cracking.

       Gabriel laid two fingers on the slave's pulse on the other side of his neck from the cut.  Then he looked at Stefan.  "I have a new rule," he said.  "I'll look at this slave in return for your promise not to punish him for a full moon cycle." 

       Stefan's eyes bugged out.  "You would bargain with me while he might be dying, Healer?" he asked.  When Gabriel said nothing, Stefan said, "Yes, yes, I agree.  Do what you can for him."

       Gabriel looked glanced back over towards Mariah and gave her a smile with the side of his mouth facing away from Stefan. He reached into his medicine pouch for a gel that he rubbed over his hands.  At the same time he looked down at the slave and said softly, "Remarque."  The slave blinked opened his eyes. "Do you know who I am?" Gabriel asked.

      “The outlander,” Remarque said, his voice hoarse. 

     

      Gabriel nodded.  He held two fingers a few inches above Remarque’s face and moved them slowly side to side.  “What are the names of the horses you take care of?” he asked.

     

      “Tracey, Tender, Racer . . .  “ Remarque said.  “That devil Plantana.”  His eyes followed Gabriel’s fingers. 

     

      Gabriel gave a small sigh of relief.  "You're going to be fine.  You've a nasty cut on your neck but you missed the artery.  I’ll fix you right up." 

       "How can you tell that he missed the artery?" Stefan asked in a worried undertone. “You haven’t even looked.” 

       Gabriel said shortly, "If he had cut the artery he'd be dead by now.  I was more concerned about a concussion."  He looked around, craning to see past the slaves around him.  "He’s lost too much blood to sit up, but I need him higher to stitch him cleanly.  Have you a table?"

      "My desk," Stefan said, indicating the office behind them. 

      Gabriel looked around, and nodded.  Without an order being given, two of the slaves hurried into the office and cleaned off the desk.  Gabriel directed several of the others to gently lift Remarque, while Stefan kept pressure on his neck.  When they had laid him into the desk, Gabriel went to the back of the building to wash his hands. 

      He returned with a bucket of clean water.  Seemingly unhurriedly, he poured white powder from two packets he took from his medicine pouch into the bucket and stirred it.  When he was done, he reached again into his medicine bag and took out a bandage and a pair of scissors.  He began to cut Stefan's shirt until only the part directly over Remarque’s wound remained.  Then he indicated to Stefan to remove his hand from the makeshift bandage.  He nodded, pleased.  "You stopped most of the bleeding yourself," he said.         

       

       He slowly began to wash away the remaining cloth from the wound.  Remarque groaned and moved his head.  Gabriel instructed Stefan to hold the slave's head still, and said to Remarque, "This is going to pinch.  You’ve lost so much blood that I can’t give you anything to numb it.”  He waited for Remarque’s eyes to meet his.  “A man who can handle a horse like Racer can handle this.  But I won’t start until you’re ready.” 

      Remarque looked away from Gabriel.  A blonde slave, slightly taller than Jordan, pushed her way next to the desk and took his hand.  Remarque relaxed.  “I’m ready, Master,” he said. 

     

      Gabriel nodded at Stefan, who tightened his grip around Remarque’s head, keeping it still.  Remarque’s eyes widened with fear.  The blonde said, conversationally, “Guess who I saw at the pond yesterday.”  Remarque looked her way, and the cunt began to tell a long, meandering story about a feral dog. 

     

       Gabriel slowly washed away the remains of Stefan's shirt that stuck to the wound.  Using a cup, he poured some of the mixture from the bucket over it, letting the blood and water mix.  When he was satisfied that there would be no infection, he sewed up the wound and placed a loose bandage over it.  All the while, the cunt continued telling Remarque her long story. 

       When at last he finished, Gabriel put his tools back in an outside pocket of his medicine bag.  He took Remarque's free hand.  "You're going to be fine," he said. "But you need to take it easy for at least a week.  That means no work."  Gabriel was looking at Stefan as he said this, and Stefan nodded.  "The stitches will come out in ten days.  After that, we'll see."

       Gabriel packed up his bag.  Suddenly he jumped and began to look about him as if he had misplaced something important. His gaze came to rest on Mariah, who was sitting quietly in the wheel contraption, and he relaxed.  "Can Remarque borrow your chair?" he asked.  "The sleeping quarters are in back, and he can’t walk it."

       Mariah jumped precipitously up without saying anything, and watched as the other stable hands helped Remarque into the chair.  Most went with him and Gabriel as he was wheeled towards the back of the building, Gabriel talking in a low voice to Stefan. 

      Mariah found herself alone with Jordan.  "Don't you want to go with them?" she asked ungraciously.

       Jordan shrugged.  "Your master told me to stay with you," she said.  She added a little mischievously, "And to keep you out of trouble."

       Mariah scowled.  "If your master knew the kind of trouble I am, he'd beat you just for talking to me."

       To Mariah's surprise, Jordan laughed.  "Master Stefan knows," she said.  "You're the kind of trouble that would keep Master Gabriel from his horse for half a moon cycle."  Impulsively she took Mariah's hand and said, "I began to think I would never lay eyes on you.  I half-wondered if you were a mindgame."

       Mariah recoiled, which hurt and made her scowl.  Jordan continued, a little contritely, "I knew Master Gabriel wouldn't lie.  But were you really outside the wall?"

       Mariah nodded, her thunder stolen.  "I've seen the wall," Jordan said in a low voice, conspiratorially.    

       Mariah shrugged scornfully.  "Some slaves grow up within sight of the wall," she said.  "But they never go outside it." 

       Jordan frowned angrily.  But she saw Mariah sway, and a quick look of understanding crossed her face.  "We can wait in Master's office," she said.  "He won't mind."  She started to take Mariah's arm but she pulled away.

       "I can take care of myself," she hissed.

       Jordan shrugged and stepped back, indicating that Mariah should precede her back into Master Stefan's office.  Inside, Jordan sat down on a divan chair placed against the inside wall, with a tilt of her head indicating that Mariah should sit next to her.  Mariah lowered herself slowly, as if it made no difference to her.  They sat in silence for a few minutes, each stubbornly staring straight ahead. 

       At last Mariah said, "You trust him, don't you?"

       Jordan looked confused for a moment but then said simply, "Master Gabriel?  Yes, I do." 

       "Why?" Mariah demanded.

       Jordan considered.  At length she said, "I can show you better than I can tell you.  But you have to let me help you walk, or I won't do it."

       Mariah scowled, and then nodded.  Leaning on Jordan, she walked out of Master Stefan's office and into the stable.  Mariah pretended not to be awed by the large animals as they passed, and if Jordan noticed that she clutched at her arm she did not mention it.

       Jordan stepped into a stall on the right.  Mariah started to follow her but stopped short when she saw a large horse turn and walk towards Jordan, pushing its face into her shoulder to nuzzle.  Jordan kissed the horse between its eyes and petted its neck.  She turned to Mariah.  "Look at her," she said softly.  "Her spirit is completely unbroken, yet she is as trusting as a child raised by its mother."

       Mariah watched blankly until comprehension awoke.  "This is Master Gabriel's horse?" she asked.

       Before Jordan could respond, Master Stefan answered from behind her, "Ridden from the far ends of the earth for the express purpose of rescuing you, it appears." 

       Mariah fell to her knees, painfully. Stefan's sardonic half smile turned to a complete frown.  "Get up," he said.  "Gabriel's done enough for me this day that I won't have you hurting yourself in these stables."

       Mariah stood up tall, stubbornly refusing to lean against the wall of the stall for support.  Stefan looked her appraisingly up and down.  "Pity you were ruined instead of making a stable hand," he said.  "We could've turned that bravado into courage."

       Mariah retorted, "If you'd have taught me to ride, I wouldn't come crawling back here every evening, waiting for your lash to fall."

       Jordan gasped, but Stefan just laughed meanly.  He turned to the back of the stable and said sarcastically, "Well, Gabriel, I can certainly see how her charms would snare you so." 

       Gabriel came into view pushing the wheel contraption.  He looked tired and sad, and a shared feeling of contrition came over the three others.  Jordan walked up to him and quietly lay her hand on top of his on the handlebar behind the chair.  "Is there anything I can do for you, Master?" she asked.  As Gabriel smiled a little and shook his head, to Mariah's shock she felt a stab of jealousy, as if she should be the one debasing herself so.  Gabriel's eyes met hers, and his smile seemed to include her.

       "You'd better sit in this contraption, Mariah," he said, "or I might take your place and have you push me home." 

       Mariah obeyed, shamefaced.  As she sat, Gabriel reminded Stefan of his care instructions for the invalid.  Stefan, for once neither sardonic nor sarcastic, said, "Gabriel, I thank you.  A vet would have killed him, I know..."

       Gabriel started to wheel Mariah towards the stable exit.  "Treat him well," he said.  "That will be thanks enough." 

CHAPTER 17:  COMING ALONG

       Mariah awoke dizzy and disoriented.  Thinking she was late for the fields, she tried to jump up but her limbs were bound.  In pieces she remembered the horse ride, the waiting room, being chosen by Master Jonas, and finally what he had done to her--when?  This morning?  Yesterday?  She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts.  She heard Master Jonas' laugh, and saw him approaching her.  "Well, no question you're a cunt, huh, girl?"  he said.  He placed his hand on her crotch and pressed his index finger into her vagina.  She was still gooey there, but his finger was large and it hurt.  Mariah whimpered.  Master Jonas laughed again.  He pulled his finger out, quickly, and it hurt as much as it had going on.

      Master Jonas unbuttoned his pants and took out penis.  Mariah stared at it, puzzled and afraid.  It did not look like the penises of the slaveboys she had grown up with.  Theirs were soft and smallish, like a floppy thumb.  Master Jonas’s was stiff and big and pointed at her.  He rubbed it and it seemed to get even larger and stiffer.

     

      Suddenly Master Jonas flung his body on top of hers so that they were lined up, face to face, chest to chest, groin to groin.  "I gave you pleasure," he whispered to her.  "Now you pleasure me."  He pressed against her body, biting at her ear.  His hand pressed against her hip and her pubic bone, hurting her. 

     

      Mariah thought Master Jonas was putting his finger back inside her, but she realized it was something much bigger.  It tore her.  She groaned and tried futilely to wiggle away.  Master Jonas' weight on top of her pinned her down.  It hurt. 

     

      Mariah tried to calm herself, to think, but the pain was too much.  A groan escaped from her.  Suddenly the pain below subsided somewhat as Master Jonas himself gave a throaty groan and one final shove, and then sprawled on top of Mariah, sleeping.  Mariah felt more disgusted by his face near hers than when he had tortured her with the dog; but, free of immediate pain, was able to gain control of her mind and her body.  She lay still.  "It's just a mindgame," she told herself.  Indeed, the rape was less painful than many thrashings she had been given, and certainly quicker. 

       After an eternity Master Jonas stirred and opened his eyes.  "Kiss me," he said to Mariah, his voice husky.  Mariah pursed her lips and pecked him on the cheek.  Master Jonas laughed softly.  "Like this," he said, and, placing his mouth on hers, parted her lips with his tongue and softly explored her mouth.  To her horror Mariah felt a ticklish sensation in her clitoris.  She tried to pull back but this was impossible.  Master Jonas shifted his position slightly so that his penis rubbed her cunt area as he continued to kiss her.  She felt wetness down there, and felt his penis grow against her inner thigh, but he did not enter her, not yet.  He cupped her face with his hands so that it was as immobilized as her body, and continued to softly kiss her.  His penis poked at her.  It was rubbing her clitoris now.  Just as she was sure she would orgasm again, Master Jonas raised his hips and reentered her vagina, but slowly this time.  Still sore, she cried out, but the sound was muffled by Master Jonas' own mouth.  He pulled his head back. "Shsh," he said, and kissed her again as he pushed his penis forward.  Suddenly, despite the pain in her cunt, Mariah came.  Master Jonas continued to kiss her and to fuck her slowly, until she came again, and again.  Master Jonas gave a great thrust with his penis, and a gasp, and, as before, collapsed on top of Mariah. 

***

       Gabriel was in a foul mood when he left his clinic.  Two teenagers who had started internships with him the previous week had neither showed up nor sent word.  The clinic was bursting with what Animal dismissively called the “wart cases” – kids with acne, women with wrinkles, men with athlete’s foot.  Wash your face, smile less, rub it with garlic, he wanted to scream at them. 

       And of course there was the usual assortment of battered slaves.  Each master or mistress promised that they would neither punish nor torture their slaves for a month if Gabriel would treat them, but there was one man who he had treated for infected cuts the week before who was now back with a broken finger.  His mistress was astonished that Gabriel remembered him, since “really, they are all alike.”  Gabriel splinted his finger anyway, and watched in disgust as the slave licked his mistress’s shoes.

       At least, he thought, while Mariah stayed under his care she would come to no further harm.  She, at least, he could heal and protect.  Maybe he couldn’t give her freedom, but he could give her safety. As he so often did, he remembered her eyes as they had looked when he had first seen her:  fierce, wild, free.  He smiled.  He would heal her, and she would look that way again. 

       He entered his apartment.  Animal and Rose were mixing pigments at the table, and Mariah was doing a breathing exercise he had taught her.  Animal and Rose greeted him.  Mariah said nothing, but her face flushed.  Gabriel said hello and then threw himself on the couch and stretched out, putting his arm over his eyes.         

      Animal cleared his throat.  “Umm, Gabriel?” he said.  When Gabriel looked at him, Animal pointed at the floor by the couch.  Mariah was prostrating herself there.

     

      Gabriel’s body reacted before his mind, scooting away from her. “What in the hell are you doing?” he asked.  Mariah didn’t answer, but her body trembled.

     

      “That’s the position a slave takes when she wants permission to speak,” Animal said mildly.

     

      “What?”  Gabriel said.  He looked down at Mariah.  If she injured herself by twisting herself into some ridiculous position her body wasn’t ready for . . .  His days without sleep, caring for her. . . .  The hours and hours of physical therapy he did with her. . . .  Her eyes . . . .

     

      “No,” he said, his voice low and harsh.  “I do not give you permission to speak.  If you want to talk to me you get up and look me in the eye.”

     

      Mariah sat up, her face hot.  Gabriel put his hand under her shoulder and practically lifted her onto the couch.  “That’s better,” he growled.  “Now, what?”

     

      Mariah fought to master herself.  She would not sulk.  She forced herself to raise her eyes to Gabriel’s, and to ask the question that had been on her mind since they left the stables that morning.  “What you did for Remarque . . .  Did you always know how to heal?” she blurted. Her face cracked, and she looked down, too embarrassed to meet Gabriel’s eyes any longer. 

     

      “Of course not,” Gabriel snapped.  “I studied hard from the time I was a boy to learn my skills.”  

     

      Mariah cleared her throat.  “Why?” she asked.  “Did you have to?”

     

      Gabriel drew a deep breath and then expelled it quickly.  “When I was a boy, my mother was pregnant with my sister,” he said.  “She went into labor early, too early.  The midwife was far away.  My father sent me for the local healer instead.  It took me a long time to track him down, and when I finally found him, he was drunk.  Too drunk to help.”  His throat closed up suddenly and his eyes stung, but he continued.  “My father delivered the baby, but he couldn’t stop my mother’s blood.  He couldn’t save her.”  Mariah’s eyes were riveted on him when he continued, “I swore then that I would be a healer, that I would always be available to help those who needed me.” 

     

      “Always?”  Animal broke in softly.  “You’ve never been drunk, or . . .”

     

      Gabriel shook his head.  “What if it’s someone else’s mother and I can’t help?  I can’t take that chance.”

     

      Animal stared at him.  “You’ll put yourself in an early grave, man, and then you’ll be no use to anyone.”     

     

      Gabriel snapped at him,  “Then you can paint a pretty picture in my memory, and everyone will give you the praise you want.” 

     

      There was silence in the room as the two man glared at each other.  “Sorry,” Gabriel muttered.  Animal shrugged.

     

      Rose cleared her throat.  She asked Animal, softly, “Did you always know that you wanted to be a painter?” 

     

      Animal gave her a half smile.  “When I was a boy my tutor took me to the museum.  There was an old painting there, from the ancients.  A picture of stars boiling in the night sky.”  Rose nodded.  She knew that painting.  “It made me feel something,” Animal said.  “It moved me.  And that’s when I knew I wanted to be an artist.”

     

      “So you could feel?”  Rose asked.

     

      Animal shook his head.  “No,” he said.  “To make others feel.”  He stood up and looked at one of his pictures hanging on the wall, of a boy playing ball with his nanny.  “But they never do.  My paintings can’t compete with the thrill of torturing a slave.”  He glared at Rose, who looked down.  He stalked out the patio door, closing it behind him with a thud.  Gabriel stood and headed out the door to the corridor, slamming it behind him.   

     

      The silence in the room thudded in Mariah’s ears.  “So masters can suffer,” she said to Rose.  “It’s nothing compared to what we go through.”

     

      “You’re wrong,” said Rose softly. “It’s something,”

***

       Mariah lost track of the days and nights in the factory.  She only knew that Master Jonas came periodically to rape her, sometimes giving her pleasure and sometimes not.  Then she found herself coming even when he was simply brutal.  Her body began to yearn for him even when he was not near.  She could not understand it.  Was it, as Master Jonas said, that she was indeed born to be a slave?  No! she told herself fiercely. 

       Master Jonas taught Mariah to pleasure him with her cunt, and her mouth, and her ass, and her breasts, and her hands.  If she did not learn quickly enough he beat her, sometimes while another slave licked at her cunt.  After a time his beatings started to make her tingle even if no one was pleasuring her.  "It's the mindgame," Mariah told herself, even as she wondered desperately how she could be so far reduced. 

***

      Gabriel took another sip of the cinnamon tea Rose had prepared.  He allowed himself to enjoy the almost unbelievable luxury of it.  He had tasted the spice once in Harmony, in an early apprenticeship, and had never expected to be so privileged again.  In Harmony the ancient twigs were carefully hoarded for diabetics and women with difficult pregnancies. 

     

      The fact that Riviera had enormous greenhouses for the laurel trees from which the spice was harvested was astonishing and humbling.  The trees were of myth and legend, native to continents Gabriel was not sure even existed. 

     

      Abruptly he thought of Carmen, the reason – or excuse – for his journey.  He had made no progress with her.  She did her exercises if he stood over her, but seemed to consider them a diversion at most.  She refused to try a wheelchair which, although it would add no strength to her legs, would give her some freedom of movement which may leave her wanting more.  He had reasoned, ordered, cajoled, and appealed to the Bearer, Carmen’s father, but nothing had made an impact.

     

      The door to Mariah’s bedroom creaked and Gabriel turned towards it.  He was embarrassed by his behavior the day before.  Mariah looked at him, and nodded.  “Are we walking today?” she asked him casually. 

     

      Gabriel smiled at her, relieved that she was not inclined to hold his bad behavior against him.  “Actually, I have a favor to ask you,” he said. 

     

       "I am yours to command, Master," she said.

       Gabriel rolled his eyes.  "I wanted to ask you,” he said with emphasis, “if you would come with me to the Bearer's quarters and meet my young charge, Carmen.”

       “If you wish it, my lord,” Mariah said. 

       Gabriel sighed.  “I do wish it,” he said. “But I wish you to wish it as well.”  

       “I wish to be free,” Mariah thought.  But she merely said, “I wish it with all my heart, my lord.”  But before he could show his disgust, or change his mind, she gave him the smallest shadow of a smile. 

       Gabriel pushed Mariah in the wheelchair towards the Bearer’s suite, his mood dampening with every step.

       The doorman stepped aside to let them enter.  Children, some squabbling with each other and others torturing slaves, were littered about the large room.  The Bearer's wife sat in a chair by a low-burning fire, toying with a dick's anus with a cold poker.  Bent over at the waist and grasping his ankles, he stood passively until she gave a hard shove and he lost his balance.  Still he did not let go of his ankles, but did a forward roll and landed on his side.  The Bearer's wife sighed, bored, and looked away.  One of the children, backing away in a game of tag, tripped over the fallen slave and squealed and then kicked him hard with all her young might.

       Unconsciously Mariah shrank down in her chair.  She had grown accustomed to the calm and controlled environment of Gabriel's mindgame.  The chaos threatened to overwhelm her.  She felt Gabriel's hand on her shoulder and heard him take a breath to steady himself.  "Ready?" he asked her in an undertone.  She nodded, her lips pressed together.  He wheeled her forward into the Bearer's living quarters.  A dick quietly presented himself in front of them, falling respectfully to his knees and placing his forehead on the ground.

       "How does she fare, Turbo?" Gabriel asked him. 

       Turbo answered without raising his head, "She's in a mood, Master." 

       Gabriel frowned as he saw that the slave was quivering and that his back was crossed with fresh whipmarks.  "Look at me, Turbo," Gabriel said quietly.  Reluctantly the slave kneeled up.  One of his eyes was blackened and swollen shut, and his chest down to his knees was covered with cuts.  Even his penis was cut and bleeding.

       "Who did this to you?" Gabriel asked.  "Carmen doesn't have the strength." 

       "No, master," Turbo answered.  "She ordered Hector to do it."

       "Why?" Gabriel asked.  “I know your devotion to her.” 

       Before Turbo could answer, a young mistress was carried up in the arms of two dicks.  She said meanly, "Answer him, Turbo. Tell him the truth about what a slut you are."

       Turbo, looking at the floor, said in a low voice, "I came without permission." 

       The mistress continued, "And how much longer would you have had to have waited before I gave you permission?"

       Turbo almost sobbed.  "Just one minute, mistress." He added, tearfully, "I'm sorry, mistress.  Georgia's blow jobs are that good.  I couldn't help myself." 

       The young mistress set her lips together in an angry line. "Who told Georgia to give you that good blow job?" she demanded.

       "You did, mistress," Turbo said.

       The mistress turned to one of the slaves who held her.  "Put me down and rape him in the ass, hard," she said.  She added to him, "You can come whenever you want." 

       "You will not!" Gabriel roared, so loud that for a moment there was silence in the room as everyone turned towards him in surprise.  But Carmen just looked at him insolently. 

       "You forget yourself, Healer," she said.  "I am the Bearer's daughter.  You are here on my errand."  She had the look of her father at his most imperious.

       Gabriel faced her silently for a moment and said at length, "I forget nothing, Carmen.  You are a child and I am a man, and you will show me proper respect."

       Mariah felt her blood chilled, as she felt before a great punishment.  She had never seen such hardness in her master, or such anger.  Another master would surely have his hand on his whip.

       But Carmen's own rage was unaffected.  "Or you'll what?" she asked venomously.  "Refuse to heal me?  You've no more skill than one of our vets anyway." 

       For a moment there was total silence in the room, except for Gabriel’s hard breathing.  At length he said, speaking deliberately, "Not only will I refuse to treat you, I shall refuse to amuse you."  He looked Carmen in the eye until she looked down.  He turned slowly, and wheeling Mariah, walked out the door. 

       When Carmen saw that he really meant to go, she screeched after him, but, except for his ears turning red, he gave no sign that he had heard.  At the sound that could only be a whip hitting flesh, followed by a groan from  Turbo, Mariah felt his step falter as he pushed her chair, but only slightly.  Not until he had turned off the endless corridor to a side passageway, a shortcut to his suite, did he stop.

       Sitting on a bench in the corridor, he put his face in his hands.

      “What is Turbo to you, my lord?” Mariah asked him.

     

      “What do you mean?” Gabriel asked, raising his head to look at her.

     

      “Did you own him once? I mean . . . why do you care what happens to him?” 

     

      Gabriel leaned forward and took Marian’s hand.  He looked her in the eye with that same unrelenting look he had given Carmen.  Mariah’s heart pounded from the force of it, but she did not look away.

     

      “He is a human being,” Gabriel said slowly. 

     

      “No,” Mariah said.  “He is a slave.” 

     

      “They call you a slave, too,” Gabriel responded.  “But don’t you feel pain?  And hope?  And despair? And love?  That’s what makes us all human.”

     

      Mariah shook her head and pulled her hand from Gabriel’s.  “I never feel love,” she said. 

CHAPTER 18:  Arousal

       There was a rhythm to life in the factory that Mariah came to know very well.  Food three times a day.  Relieving herself three times a day.  Exercise time once a day, now fully naked and in a larger courtyard with the other slaves who had been broken in. Five minute cold shower with her exercise cohort.  Mariah was diligent about these physical tasks, determined to stay healthy for...she had no idea what came next. But she intended to survive it, whatever it was.

       She was no longer tied down, and the chain shackled to her ankle was long enough to allow her to venture several feet.  After a while she became familiar with the slaves in the cubicles near to her own, and with the comings and goings of the masters and mistresses.  She learned that, just like in the fields, rules could be quietly bent, if you were careful, and she sometimes had conversations with the others.  There was an exercise yard master who was lazy, and overlooked small infractions. 

       Mariah learned that all the slaves were, like her, new from the fields where they had spent their lives.  All had been told the same thing by the master or mistress in charge of them in the factory: that if they could refrain from an orgasm for only an hour, they would be human beings and not slaves.  Mariah avoided those who were downcast at failing the test; they, she felt, could not be trusted.  Of the others, some admitted softly that they had not arrived as virgins, but had been initiated into sex in the fields, by their masters or mistresses or even by members of their cohorts.  So they had no hope to start off with.

       One day in the exercise yard after Master Jonas had made Mariah come several times by lowering her cunt onto a greased wooden pole attached vertically to a board on the floor and then whipping her bottom while she writhed on it, Mariah voiced the question she had been asking herself over and over again:  How was it possible to have so little control over her own body?

       "Don't you know?" Jeffers, a dick with whom she was friendly, asked.  "It's something they put in our gruel.”

       Mariah slowed her jog to a walk and stared at him.  She felt her face turn red, then white.  Master Jonas had lied to her; she did not come because she was weak, a slave cunt; but because of yet another mindgame.  Then she realized that despite herself until this moment she had half-believed, the filthy lies he had told her.

       The exercise master whipped Mariah's already welted bottom, startling her.  She jumped and began her run again, her anger giving her energy to catch up and then pass Jeffers.  She ran the laps quickly until her exercise hour was up and she was herded to the shower.        

 

***

       Mariah lay down for her usual afternoon nap, but she found she wasn’t tired.  She stared restlessly around the room, listening to Animal rustle around in the living quarters and then open and close the door to the corridor, followed by silence.  She sat up and did her breathing exercises.  Gabriel had told her that she could not do them too often. 

      She could feel the breath expand in her body, as Gabriel had taught her to notice.  Her chest was hurting less.  The rest of her wounds were as good as healed.  Her arm hadn’t bothered her for weeks.  Her scabs had mostly shrunk into scars, and even they were fading.  The mirror in the bathroom told her that her face was no longer bruised and swollen, and her hair had started to grow back where it had been yanked out. She still tired easily, but not as easily as she pretended.  And today she felt positively strong. 

       Restlessly she walked to the door of her sleeping quarters and opened it.  She was greeted with silence.  Quietly she walked into the living area, and looked around.  It was meticulously, almost cloyingly clean.  As a houseslave Mariah had always done as poor a job as she possibly could and still escape punishment; and since almost every other slave did the same that was a poor job indeed.  She rolled her eyes at the thought of Rose taking such care.

       She glanced at Animal’s paintings hanging on the walls.  A bowl of peaches, a slave mowing the great lawn, a field of wildflowers.  She liked that one.  It looked inviting.

       A dart of light struck the wildflower painting, startling her.  She looked around for its source and realized that sunlight from the courtyard window was bouncing off the gold do not molest bracelet Gabriel had placed on her wrist some time ago.  She stared at it for a moment, then glanced quickly around the apartment to reassure herself that she was alone.  She crossed to the door to the corridor, opened it, and looked both ways.  The hall was empty.  She stepped out and closed the door behind her, and began to walk, her heart hammering. 

       When she came to the busier main corridor, she lowered her eyes, slouched her shoulders, and let her hair fall onto her face.  No one paid her any mind.  She hesitated only for a moment before turning toward the main entrance hall. 

       She wondered what she would she do when she got there?  Walk outside, all the way to the wall mile after mile away?  She was tired already, and the hammering of her heart was making her chest hurt.  No, it was not time to run again, not yet.  She had just made up her mind to turn back when she heard her name. 

       “Mariah!”  It was Master Gabriel, walking with another master who Mariah did not know.  Gabriel acted as though it was the most natural, and happy, event in the world to meet his slave in the corridor, on no errand he had set for her.  He hurried toward her, smiling.  “It’s good to see you up and about!” he said.  “Where are you going?” 

     

      While Mariah tried frantically to think of a lie she straightened up, shook the hair off her face, and looked Master Gabriel in the eye.  Of course she could have no errand; she had no duties.  Keep it simple.  “I wanted to find some sorrel, to surprise you,” she said, daring him to challenge her.  But Gabriel just looked puzzled. 

     

      He turned to his companion, a tall, somewhat chubby man with reddish brown hair cropped short.  “This is Roland.  He’s a healer.  He wants to help me out in my clinic, and see what he can learn.”

     

      “Not a healer, just a vet,” Roland corrected him.  He looked at Mariah quizzically. “Is that the runaway?” he asked.  “I’ve heard about her . . . and by the looks of it she’s still running.” 

     

      “Nonsense,” said Gabriel.  “She’s testing her legs.”  He smiled at Mariah warmly.  Oh, it was good to see that proud, defiant look, even if the girl was acting the fool.  There were times when he had despaired that he would ever see it again.

     

      Gabriel’s practiced eyes also saw the slight tremor in Mariah’s legs. She was tired. “If you don’t mind,” he said to her, “I’ll come with you.  I need some air.”  He turned to Roland.  “Join us?” he said.

     

      Roland shook his head emphatically no, raised up his hands, and backed away.  “I don’t socialize with slaves,” he said.

     

      “You can’t heal them if you don’t talk to them,” said Gabriel, but Roland was already walking away.  “There’s another one that won’t show up at the clinic,” he said a little ruefully to Mariah.  He took her hand and started towards the entrance hall.  “Would you mind if we sit for a minute before we go herb hunting?” he asked.  “I’ve been on my feet for hours and I’m tired.” 

     

      “I am yours to command, my lord,” said Mariah.

     

      Gabriel snorted and placed her hand in the crook of his elbow.  “And if I commanded you to stop taking foolish risks?”

     

      “My lord?” said Mariah, all deliberate innocence, although her hand grasped his arm ever so slightly tighter.

     

      Gabriel led her to a recessed window about three feet above the floor.  He turned so he was facing her, picked her up gently, and sat her down on the sill.  He put one hand on each side of her legs and looked at her gravely.

     

      “You’re not up to full strength yet, Mariah.  Far from it.  And even I know a beautiful slave girl wandering the corridors alone is not safe.”

     

      “Then it’s lucky I’m ugly,” Mariah said.

     

      Gabriel laughed, and then gave a double take, realizing she was serious.  “You think that?”  He took half a step closer, so that his toes were up against the wall and he was standing between her knees.   “With those green blazing eyes?”  He leaned in and put his hands on her thighs. “And that perfect chin?” 

     

      Mariah was transfixed by his eyes, by his voice, by his hands on her.  She suddenly understood what Rose has said in the bathtub, about not being dried up.  She stared at him and he stared back.  Entranced, she leaned towards him, to taste him.

     

      But Gabriel stepped back abruptly, taking his hands off her.  “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice a little shaky.  What was he doing?  He knew better.

     

      “I’m fully trained, Master,” Mariah was saying stiffly.  “And my cunt is healed.  You needn’t fear using me.”

     

      Now Gabriel colored.  “You may be trained to be raped,” he said, “but I’m not trained to be a rapist.  I would never touch a slave in that way.” 

     

      Mariah pushed herself off the windowsill so she was standing directly in front of him.  “I thought you didn’t believe in slavery,” she said, and her voice was angry and mocking.  She pushed passed him and walked back in the direction of his apartment.

         

***

      Mariah came to learn that the factory was not permanent.  After a while the slaves left there, but no one knew where they went. Some who had arrived after her had already gone.  Jeffers thought they were put to death but Mariah did not believe that.  Her master spent too much time training her, or at least her body, to plan to annihilate her.

       Mariah no longer fought her orgasms.  After all, the struggle was futile and the end predetermined by the very food she ate.  Perhaps because of this, or maybe it was just coincidence, Master Jonas' interest in her waned.  Sometimes several days might go by without Mariah seeing him, although other masters and sometimes mistresses would use her body at least daily. 

       One day after her exercise time Shinelle roughly strapped Mariah spread-eagle on her shelf, as when she had first arrived at the factory. Master Jonas came to her a few minutes later.  He smiled at her almost wistfully.  Mariah groaned silently.  It was worst when Master Jonas treated her kindly, or pretended to.  Although in her mind she knew he was an evil son of a bitch, her body reacted to his presence immediately, her clitoris tingling and the juices beginning to form in her vagina.  “You will look me in the eye, and you will not look away,” Master Jonas said.  Mariah obeyed.

      Master Jonas moved between her spread legs and placed his fingers on her inner thighs, tickling them, running his fingers down to her knees and back up to the edge of her sex, his fingers waggling quickly but his hands moving slowly.  He moved down and up her legs again, and again, and again, but always stopping, and always holding her gaze.  As he approached her sex again, Mariah whimpered, and her hips moved.

     

      Master Jonas moved one hand to just above her pubic hair, the other hand on her butt cheeks, his fingers still drumming.  His lower hand came closer and closer to her sex, until he was tapping on her labia but not touching the center. The pleasure in Mariah's womb was like pain.  She couldn’t help it; she raised her hips until her sex was pointing at him.

     

      Slowly, teasingly, Master Jonas dipped his finger into Mariah's soaking vagina and moved the moisture up to her clit, still holding her eye.  She groaned, low and guttural, but he didn't linger there.  Instead, he unzipped his pants.  “Keep looking at me while you come,” he commanded her, and slowly he pushed his penis into her, rubbing her clitoris as he did so.  Mariah came almost immediately.  She fought to keep her eyes open while the waves crashed over her.  Master Jonas smiled while he continued to look at her.  He pushed in and pulled almost all the way out, slowly, slowly, slowly.  Mariah had several more orgasms before he looked away and rammed himself into her, crying out as he came.  As he often did, he fell asleep on top of her.  Mariah dozed too.

       They awoke about a half hour later.  The wistful look in Master Jonas' eyes remained as he whispered in her ear, his breath tickling her, "That was to show you how it could have been."  Then he rolled off of her and almost nonchalantly unbuckled her restraints.  Mariah knew better than to move without his permission.  He left her so for a minute, until her thighs began to ache from being spread widely without the help of the leather ties.  At last Master Jonas gave a thrust of his chin, indicating to Mariah to get up.  She did so as quickly as her aching muscles would allow. 

       "Down on your hands and knees," Master Jonas commanded.  Mariah obeyed without thought, her thighs still aching and her cunt still dripping.  When Master Jonas ordered her to crawl she did so, ignoring the almost immediate ache in her shoulders and knees.

CHAPTER 19:  Two courtyards

       Mariah slammed open the door to Gabriel’s apartment, causing it to reverberate on its hinges.  She hated herself.  She had acted the fool, letting down her guard and allowing a human being to crawl inside her head and read her secret thoughts and torment her with them. 

       Is it really too soon to run? Reliving the torture would be better than living with this mindgame – no, mindgame was too tame.  Than living with that mindraping bastard, Master Gabriel.

       She started to breathe slowly and deeply to center her thoughts, then remembered that Master Gabriel had taught her that trick.  She expelled her breath so quickly that she coughed.  Bastard.

       It is too soon to run.  Her body was too weak, and she was far from the wall, and she had no plan. 

       A movement in the courtyard caught her eye.  Two sparrows were chasing each other. Nearby, Master Animal was sleeping in a divan chair in the sun. 

       I’ll show him I’m not giving into the game. I make my own rules.

       She crossed to the sliding door to the courtyard and opened it silently.  She glanced over into Animal’s apartment and his studio.  The lights were off.  If Rose was around there was no sign of her.  She walked over to the divan where Animal lay dozing, her bare feet making no sound.  Do I dare?  Slaves did not approach human beings.  I escaped.  I break the rules.

       Silently she kneeled by the divan chair.  Animals’ legs were slightly spread.  She put her right hand firmly on his inner thigh, over his pants leg, near his groin, and bent her head down to the slight bulge beneath his button fly.

       Animal startled.  His body jumped back in the divan.  “Wha . . . ? Rose?”  Quick as thought he was pulling the back of Mariah’s head up by her hair.  He stared at her, wild-eyed, almost panicked.  “Mariah?  What are you . . . ?”  He held her hair in a death grip. 

       Mariah could find no words.  Dry-mouthed, she suddenly realized that she wasn’t ready for this mindgame to be over.  What have I done?

       Animal let go of her so suddenly that she fell, skinning her knee on a cobblestone.  He sat up and swung his feet over to the ground.  His knees and his ankles were pressed firmly together. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his wrists crossed, protecting his middle. “You mind telling me what you were doing?”  he asked Mariah mildly, although his chest rose and fell with hard breath.

       Mariah raised her chin.  “I wanted to pleasure you,” she said.

       Animal said harshly,  “I’m no innocent outlander, Mariah.  Tell me the truth.”

       Mariah grasped for a lie that would be believable.  “I’m horny,” she said.  But when she said it she realized it was true.   

       “You know I’m not your master.”  Animal’s voice, if not gentle, was less hard.

         “Master Gabriel wouldn’t mind,” Mariah said.  She met his eye, trying for defiance again, against any kindness.

       Animal  snorted.  “Don’t be an idiot.”  

       “It’s true,” Mariah said.  “Master Gabriel told me he doesn’t fuck slaves.” She was surprised by the bitterness so clear in her voice.

      Animal could hear it too.  His pulse not pounding quite so loudly in his ears, he took a deep breath and looked closely at his friend’s slave.  From habit he pictured her as the subject of a painting.  She kneeled before him in obeisance, but her green eyes glared at him. Her face was framed by her dark, almost black hair, that was still uneven from where it had been pulled out and was growing back.  Her cheeks flushed with emotion, but whether it was anger or embarrassment or shame he could not tell.  He knew what the title of the painting would be: “Defeated but unbroken.”  He couldn’t help but admire her, a little. Still, for all her bold colors he was glad she wasn’t his.  He thought of Rose, pastels and light browns.

     

      “I don’t fuck slaves either,” he said to Mariah.  “Except my own.” 

     

      Mariah’s eyes stung.  I’m done with crying.  She took  a deep breath.  “Is this the torture, then?” she asked, trying to keep  her voice neutral.  “To never fuck again?”

     

      Animal did not answer immediately.  He didn’t know what Gabriel had in mind for Mariah, now that she was healing.  “He doesn’t mean it as torture,” he said at last.   “And I think you know that.”

     

      Mindraping bastard, Mariah thought again.  How could she guess what he meant or didn’t mean?  She breathed deeply in and out, once, twice.  She was so, so tired of this game.  Torture masquerading as kindness.  Kindness masquerading as torture.  Was there a way to cut through it, to end it now?  She looked up.  “Aren’t you going to punish me for touching you?” she asked.

       Animal fingered the whip on his belt.  “Is that what you want?”  He sounded disappointed.  “Are you a pain slut?”

       “No!” Mariah said, recoiling, revolted and offended by the accusation, stung that Master Animal would think that of her.

       “Good,” said  Animal with a grim small smile.  “Because I’m a pansy.  Since you don’t like being punished, and I’m too lazy to punish you, this once we’ll let things slide.“        

      Was it kindness?  Or had Animal just outsmarted her? Or was he really such a pansy that she could take any liberties? “Is this slave supposed to thank you, Master?” she asked, her voice sarcastic. 

       “Yes,” Animal  said.  “By letting me finish my nap.”  And he laid back on the divan and closed his eyes.  Mariah watched him uncertainly for a moment, then rose to her feet and walked back to Gabriel’s apartment.  As she started to open the sliding door Animal called her name.   When she turned to him he said, “If you come near my junk again I will punish you, in a way you won’t forget.  I’m a pansy but I’m not a fanatic.”  There was a hard anger in his voice that made Mariah automatically say, “Yes, my lord,” before she went back into the apartment.          

***

       Crawling, Mariah could not see where Master Jonas was taking her, only that they went through huge wooden doors that led her out of the Factory.  Mariah thought back to the horseback ride from the fields to the mansion.  Like then, she now had no idea what was coming. She snorted as she recalled how naive and hopeful she had been then.  Master Jonas flicked her ass with his whip and she increased her pace, her knees and wrists protesting.

       It seemed to her and her aching body that the crawl was endless, but rationally she knew they hadn't gone very far when Master Jonas directed her to go through a doorway.  Mariah caught a hubbub of voices.

       Master Jonas paused.  They were in a large cobblestoned courtyard, shaded here and there by trees.  Throughout the courtyard were slaves shackled to metal rings set in the ground or wooden posts that stood upright.  Humans milled around the slaves, some gazing from one slave to another, others studying a single slave intently.  One mistress was checking the teeth of a young male, while another was finger fucking a cunt who gyrated while biting the inside of her cheeks to keep from crying out.

       “This is called the Exchange,” Master Jonas told Mariah.  “There are several of them throughout the mansion.  Slaves are brought here for new assignments, and humans come here to find new slaves.”

       Mariah digested this new information.  Master Jonas was done with her, then.  She felt a lightness throughout her body.  It was hope.

       Master Jonas indicated that Mariah should stand up.  “Most of the slaves at this Exchange have come straight from the factory and need training.”  At Mariah’s puzzled look, he laughed.  “Oh, I’ve begun to train your body,” he said, “but a slave needs to know how to do more than fuck.  Most of the slaves, especially the cunts, will learn to serve in a household, while they are young.”

       Mariah looked down.  There was so much more she wanted to know.  “You can ask your questions,” Master Jonas said.

       “You said while they’re young, Master.” Mariah said.  “What happens after that?”

       “It depends,” Master Jonas answered.  “Some stay in household service for years.  But most, once they start to lose their looks, will be moved along to other jobs.  Or they might get sent back to the farm.  Nearly all slaves end up back there sooner or later.”

       Mariah looked around again, grateful for the information.  She watched a master making his way among the slaves.  He wasn’t handsome, exactly, but he gave off an air of cheerfulness.  He stopped by a blonde slave girl who Mariah recognized from the exercise yard at the factory and asked her a question. She answered, looking down, and then in response to his command looked up.  He was smiling and in response she smiled too, tentatively.

       Mariah looked away, embarrassed.  There was something deeply private about the exchange she had witnessed.  She wondered if it would be the same when she was chosen. 

       Master Jonas had seen the same thing.  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” he said to Mariah.  He took hold of her wrist, circling it strongly with his thumb and fingers.  “A kind master to belong to?”

       No, Mariah thought.  It would be too personal.  But out loud she said,  “I don’t know, master.”

       Master Jonas pointed out a mistress who was trailed by three slaves, two cunts and a dick.  “That’s Mistress Miranda.  She trains houseslaves, and is known for teaching them to be outstanding cooks.  There’s a waiting list for her slaves, and their owners usually treat them well and keep them for a long time.  Maybe you’d like to be one of them?”

       Nervousness washed over Mariah.  Why was Master Jonas asking her these questions?  She would have no choice in the matter.  She searched for an acceptable answer.  “I want to do what pleases you, my lord,” she said.

       Master Jonas laughed at that.  “It’s a pity you didn’t feel that way when we first met,” he said.  He tugged her closer to him, brushed her hair away from her ear, and whispered, “It’s time for your punishment for that day.” 

       Mariah’s blood ran cold.  It took every ounce of her energy not to pull away from Master Jonas. He had told her he would torture her to death.  But surely he hadn’t meant it, after the time he had spent breaking her body.  All that effort would be wasted. 

       Master Jonas pulled Mariah inexorably by the wrist to the middle of the courtyard.  There was a platform there, perhaps two feet above the ground.  Like the rest of the courtyard, it had metal rings on its floor and wooden posts that stood upright. 

      Master Jonas stepped onto the platform and pulled Mariah up behind him.  He turned to her suddenly, so that they were face to face and almost touching.  She started to back away but the edge of the platform stopped her.  He bent so that he was whispering in her ear again.  “Do you remember how it felt when I fucked you earlier?” he asked, and he touched her breasts lightly with his fingers.

       “Yes, Master,” Mariah said, and already, with just his breath in her ear and his hands on her breasts, her cunt was burning, although the sensation was not as strong as the fear that coursed through her body. 

       “Would you like me to whip your breasts?” he whispered to her.

       “Only if it pleases you, my lord,” Mariah answered.

       Master Jonas leaned away from her.  “It is such a pity what I must do to you,” he said, and he licked his lips.  “I’m not going to whip your breasts.” 

       “Thank you, Master,” Mariah said.

       “And I’m not going to beat your cunt.” 

       Unsure, Mariah said, “Thank you, Master.”

       Master Jonas smiled.  “I’m going to whip your wrist.”

       “My wrist, Master?”  Mariah had seen slaves beaten on the bottom of their feet, or on the palms of their hand.  But her wrist seemed . . . benign.

       Master Jonas nodded.  “I’m going to whip your wrist, right here.”  He took her hand and touched her lightly where a blue-green vein stood out just above her hand.  “I’m going to whip it over and over again, until you start to bleed there.  And then I’m going to do the same thing to your other wrist.”  He picked up her other hand and touched it in the same spot.  “And then I’m going to put a spreader bar between your hands so that you can’t use them to stop the bleeding.  And then I’m going to leave you here, and watch as the life drain out of you.”  He dropped her hand and smiled.  “Such a waste.”

       Mariah involuntarily took a step back, horrified.  Her foot touched the edge of the platform.  I want to live.  His hand was still holding her wrist.  She brought it up to her face in a quick movement and bit his arm as hard as she could.  He yelped and let go of his grip on her.  She turned and jumped, running through the courtyard, dodging the shackled slaves, trying desperately for the door they had come through. A guard stepped in front of it. “Now, now,” he said, and caught her, and held her.  When she struggled, the guard deftly turned her around so her back was against him, crossed her arms in front, and grabbed each wrist from behind.  She was bound by her own arms. 

       Master Jonas had come down from the stage and was walking to her, slowly, a slight smile on his face, while the guard held her tight.  “Please,” Mariah begged him.  “He’s going to kill me.”

      “Hush, now,” the guard said.  “Be good.”

     

      Master Jonas nodded to the guard, and grabbed Mariah by the hair.  He lowered his arm so that she was bent double, and then started to walk back to the platform.  When Mariah stumbled he simply dragged her until she was able to find her footing.  His grip on her scalp was so tight that she could not struggle.  There were jeers and catcalls but she could not translate them into anything she could understand.

     

      When they reached the platform Master Jonas let go of her, but many hands grabbed her and lifted her onto it and secured her feet to shackles and her arms to posts.  Struggling was useless.  She was overpowered. 

     

      When she was secured she felt the first lash.  The whip wrapped around her wrist, leaving a red mark.  It only stung, but Mariah, having no other way to fight, screamed with all her might.  Laughter, jeering, catcalls, another strike.  This one cut her a little, on her forearm, where the lash crossed the previous mark.  She was still screaming.  She pulled frantically on her bindings, but they were secure. 

     

      The next lash fell on her other arm.  With all her might Mariah tried to form words.  “Help me!”  It came out as a screech.  “I don’t want to die!”  Then, all she could do was scream.

     

      When her noise stopped as she took a quick breath, there was silence.  The whip had not fallen again.  Mariah opened her eyes which she had not realized had been shut.  A short, silver-haired mistress was on the platform, her hands on her hips, glaring at Master Jonas.  “Do you have permission from the Bearer to kill her?” Blood leaked from Mariah’s forearm towards her shoulder.

     

      Master Jonas looked down, red-faced.  “I was just having some fun, Corinne,” he said.

     

      “This is not the theater,  young man,” the mistress said.  “If you’ve come to leave your cunt at the exchange, leave her now.” 

     

      “Let me whip her first,” Master Jonas said, almost pleading.  “She’s nothing but a torture cunt.  Let me mark her so all will know.”

     

      The mistress looked Mariah up and down.  “She’s young,” she said.  “Looks like she just came from the factory.”

     

      “She did,” Master Jonas said.  “I broke her in.”

     

      The mistress sniffed disdainfully.  “You must have botched it if she’s to be made a torture cunt so young,” she said.

     

      “No!” Master Jonas said.  “It’s all she’s good for, I tell you.  She just tried to run away from me.  Anyone here can tell you that.”

     

      “Is that true, girl?” Mistress Corinne asked Mariah.  “Did you just try to run away?”

     

      Mariah tried to put every ounce of humility she could find into her battered voice.  “Yes, mistress,” she said.

     

      “Why would you do such a thing?”

     

      “I don’t want to die, Mistress,” Mariah said, and tears ran down her face and her knees buckled so that she was supported only by the shackles on her arms.

     

      Mistress Corinne said to a young slave standing near the platform, “Anna, untie her and wrap her wounds.”

     

      She turned back to Master Jonas.  “I’m sick to death of you people ruining perfectly good slaves.  You’ve no respect, that’s what.  Leave her, and get out of here.”

     

      As Mariah was freed from her restraints she saw Master Jonas glaring with hate.  But he was looking at Mistress Corinne, not at her.  Without a word to her he turned on his heels and walked away, even as soothing hands began to put bandages on her bleeding wrist.  

Chapter 20: Denial

       “There you go, pretty thing, drink, grow and be strong,” Gabriel murmured to the marjoram plant as he watered it on the windowsill of his clinic.  He sighed when he heard the door to the adjoining room open.  His posted hours were over. 

      “Excuse me,” a querulous voice called to him.  “Can you help me with a pimple on my belly button?”

     

      Gabriel answered without turning around, “Exercise, think pure thoughts, and drink a gallon of water a day.”

     

      “I think I’ll just pop it,” Animal said with a sour grin as we ambled into Gabriel’s office.

      

      Gabriel nodded.  “That might work too.”  He put down his watering can, picked up a bottle of vinegar, and began to spray his countertop and wipe it down.  “To what do I owe the honor of this visit, oh pimpled one?” 

     

      When Animal didn’t answer Gabriel glanced over to him.  His grin gone, he was staring moodily at the spray bottle, apparently lost in thought.  

     

      Gabriel finished with the countertop, took a broom and dustpan from the closet and started to sweep the floor.  Animal broke from his reverie. “You should get Mariah to do that for you.” 

     

      “I’m perfectly capable of cleaning up for myself,” Gabriel responded, and continued to sweep.

     

      “She should do it for you!” Animal said.  “She’s well enough now to attend to her duties.”

     

      Gabriel looked up, surprised, to Animal’s glare. “You forget.  She is a patient under my care, that’s all.  I have no duties for her.” 

     

      Animal stepped toward Gabriel and grabbed the top of the broom handle so Gabriel couldn’t sweep any more.  “Whether you call yourself her master or not, she has no other,” he said tersely.  “If you don’t start acting like it, you’ll lose her.”  

     

       “What do you mean?” Gabriel asked, surrendering the broom to Animal.  “The Bearer gave her to me.  No one would try to take her.”

      

       Animal leaned the broom in the corner of the room and turned back to Gabriel.  “The Bearer won’t stop a human being from disciplining a slave who acts out,” he said.  “Sooner or later she’s going to provoke someone to punishing her beyond your skill to heal.”

     

      “You’re wrong,” Gabriel said.  “She’s smarter than that.” 

     

       “I’m not wrong,” Animal said. He stared at Gabriel, unrelenting.  “And you know it.”

     

      Gabriel started to protest, but he pictured Mariah the first time he had seen her, outside the wall, running away; the horrible punishment after she was caught that brought her near death; and every confrontation she seemed to seek with masters and mistresses when she was on the lawn with him, provoking them, provoking them, provoking them.  He expelled a breath, and nodded, slowly. 

     

        “Look, brother, you’re a fine healer, a great one, no one disputes that,” Animal said.  “But you’re not a vet.  You don’t understand slaves.  They might look like humans, but they’re not.”  He tapped his head. “It’s just fluff up here for them. It’s all feelings, wants, needs.”  When Gabriel started to protest, Animal held up his hands to silence him.  “If you want to keep Mariah safe you have to make sure her needs get met.”

     

      “I do,”  Gabriel protested.  “I’m healing her.  I make sure she has healthy food, exercise, whatever freedom of movement I can give her . . . “

     

      “What she needs,” Animal interrupted, enunciating slowly, “is a good fucking.” 

     

      Gabriel took two steps back, bumping into the counter.  “No,” he said.  “I would never. Never! I’ve told her that already.”

     

      “So she said,” said Animal, his face carefully neutral.  “An hour ago, after she tried to rape me while I was sleeping.”

     

       “What?”  Gabriel jolted.  “She what?”

     

      Animal looked down at the floor and then back up at Gabriel.  “I’m coming to you as your friend,” Animal said.  “Another man might have killed her for what she did.” 

     

      Gabriel turned his back to Animal.  “And did you . . . ?” he asked, his voice unnaturally thick as he sprayed with vinegar the counter he had just finished cleaning.

     

      “Did I what?”Animal asked.  “Kill her?”

     

      Gabriel asked, his back still turned to Animal, “Did you have sex with her?”

     

      “Of course not!” Animal said.  “For a slave to approach a human . . .”  He shuddered. 

     

      Gabriel continued to spray the counter, until the vinegar pooled on it.  Animal could see the hot flush on his cheek.

     

      “You do want her, don’t you?” he said softly.

     

      Gabriel slammed the spray bottle onto the counter with a bang.  “It doesn’t matter what I want!  To have sex with a patient would be bad enough.  But to rape a slave?  I would never . . .” he repeated, and trailed off.

      

      Animal sighed in exasperation.  “If you won’t fuck her you need to have someone else do it,” he said.  “Or the next human she approaches might not be your friend, or a pansy.” 

     

      “I’ll talk to her,” Gabriel said, scrubbing the counter with a towel in tiny, hard circles.  “She can learn to control herself.”

     

      Animal walked over to Gabriel and put his hand on the towel, stopping him.  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” he said.  “She can’t control herself.  She’s a slave.  Cats chase mice, cows chew their cud, and slaves fuck.  It’s what they’re bred for, and it’s all they know.”

     

      Gabriel stared at him, breathing hard, and Animal met his eye steadily.  At last Gabriel said, “You can’t believe that about Rose.”

     

      Animal snorted. “Rose?”  he said.  “I grant you she can cook better than most, and she keeps the apartments clean enough.  But do you know why?”  When Gabriel shook  his head, Animal continued, “It’s because I make her come every night.  Without fail.  She knows it, and that lets her focus enough during the day to be a decent housecunt.  She’s no different from any slave I’ve had.”

     

      Gabriel shook his head.  “You’re a fool,” he said, almost to himself.

     

      “No,” Animal said with his sour grin, “I’m a pansy.”

     

      “You’re a fool,” Gabriel said more forcefully.  “Rose takes good care of you because she cares for you.”  Animal started to speak, but Gabriel interrupted him.  “You’re supposed to be the artist who sees things.  Haven’t you noticed how she always serves you a little more food than me, how she always puts a few more flowers in the vase in your apartment than in mine, how she always has a smile that is for you alone?”

     

      Animal frowned.  “I’ll put a stop to that,” he said, and he unconsciously reached for the whip on his belt.  “The Bearer said she should treat you better than me.”

     

      “No!” Gabriel said.  “She does these things as a gift for you, because it’s all that she can give.”  He turned back to his counter and started scrubbing it again.  Then he slapped his cleaning rag against it, hard, and pivoted again to Animal.  He said, “And you?  You’re a brute who doesn’t deserve her.” 

     

      The two men glared at each other.  Animal gave in first, taking a step back and putting his hands up in mock surrender before he turned and left Gabriel’s office without another word.  

     

     

      ***

     

      Mistress Corinne was examining the hands of a slave, helping Master Tonit determine his suitability for work in the bakery that served the south wing of the mansion.  “You’ll have to break him in slowly,” she said.  “He’s lost his calluses from the field.” 

       Mariah knelt to her Mistress’s side, her knees apart, her hands clasped behind her back, her eyes respectfully on her mistress’s feet, awaiting her next orders.

       “I just don’t know if he’s strong enough,” Tonit said, squeezing the slave’s biceps.

       Mariah knew that would annoy her mistress.  “He’s young,” Mistress Corinne said.  “He hasn’t reached his full strength.  This is the factory exchange.  If you want an older slave, you’ll have to look elsewhere.”

       “No, I want one who I don’t need to break of bad habits,” he said.  “But the bakery’s hard work.  I need a boy who can lift.”

       Mistress Corinne turned away, having lost all interest in the conversation.  “If this one doesn’t suit you, you’re free to look around,’ she said. She looked down at Mariah.  “Did you finish cleaning out the supply closet?” she asked.

       “Yes, mistress,” Mariah answered, not raising her eyes.

       “It had better be spotless,” Mistress Corinne said, but she knew it would be.  It had been over a week since she had rescued the cunt from that idiot Jonas, and her work had been flawless.  And yet . . .

       “Under that oak tree, do you see that group of cunts?”  she asked Mariah.  Mariah looked over.  “Yes, mistress.”

       “I want you to pleasure each of them.  Use your mouth.  And no more than ten minutes each.  Make sure they come.”

       “Yes, mistress,” Mariah said.  Her tone was deferential, but her heart sank.  She wanted desperately to please this mistress, to keep her from marking her as a torture cunt as Master Jonas had suggested.  She was on edge all the time, fearing that rebellion would slip out – the same rebellion she had showed to Master Jonas when he had chosen her.  Sometimes her eyes ached from looking down, when she longed to look her mistress full in the face. 

      But that was nothing compared to the constant, unbearable ache that originated in her sex and spread outward until it took over her whole body.  Mistress Corinne had her pleasure other slaves daily, sometimes more, but had not yet seen fit to allow Mariah release.  The greatest torture was pleasuring other cunts, feeling with her tongue the same contours as her own sex, tasting their desire, feeling their surge of freedom at the end.

       Mariah knew that among both humans and slaves there were some who preferred their own kind – female to female or male to male.  She didn’t think she was one of those.  In her dreams, awake or asleep, it was the hardness of men that satisfied her.  Not just their sex in hers; she knew that there were substitutes that could be used for that.  It wasn’t the strength of their bodies alone that she was drawn to, but the strength of their will – something she was not sure she had ever encountered when awake, among men or women, human or slaves. 

       Pleasuring the dicks in the exchange made her burn, but not as much as her dreams did.  The slaves were not allowed to move besides the small gyrations they could not help, the collapse at the end.  They could not choose to touch her as they wanted; or to have her touch them.  She enjoyed giving them relief because they were happy, grateful, to receive it. 

      But pleasuring the girls made her think of her own pleasure.  She touched them as she longed to be touched; gave them the relief she longed to receive.  And when they exploded onto her, just the slightest touch, she knew, would create her own explosion.  That touch never came.  She fought to keep her knees spread, to prevent any accidents, to show her mistress that she was obedient and good. And with that hope – that she could convince Mistress Corinne that she was worthy – she trudged to the slave girls who awaited her.      

       

CHAPTER 21: SHIFTS

       Rose looked worriedly from Mariah to Master Gabriel to Master Animal. All three sat silently glowering at their dinner plates.  Gabriel nudged his untasted food with his fork, and then abruptly slammed the utensil down on the table.  He stood, almost overturning his chair.  As he righted it, he said tightly, “Thank you, Rose.  Dinner was delicious.”  He started toward the patio door.

       Animal cleared his throat.  “Yes, thank you, Rose,” he said.  “It was very good.  Especially the . . . ”  He looked down at his laden plate.  “. . . beets.” 

      Gabriel stopped in his tracks and turned.  He, Rose, and Mariah stared at Animal, who warded off their looks with his hands and said, “What?  I like the color,” he said.

      

      “It’s carmine,” Rose whispered, her face almost the color of the beets in question.

     

      Animal blinked.  “That’s what I was thinking,” he said.  “Too bright for burgundy.”  He tasted one of the vegetables.  “It is good.” 

     

      Rose, her face even hotter than before, managed to whisper, “I’m glad you like it, Master.”  She tried to meet his eye but could not bring herself to look higher than his chest.

     

      Animal, though, had turned his attention to Gabriel. “Sit,” he said gruffly, gesturing with his fork towards his friend’s empty chair.  “You’ve barely eaten.  You need your strength to heal all the warted ladies tomorrow.”

     

      Gabriel nodded at him with a slight smile.  “I guess I could try those beets,” he said. He glanced over at Mariah, to include her in the lightened mood, but she had returned to glowering at her plate and did not notice. 

     

      ***

     

      Mariah made her way back to the dais.  She walked bow-legged to keep her upper thighs from touching – which, she was sure, would be enough to cause her a forbidden orgasm.  The longing for it was a sharp pain, centered in her clit and radiating outward.  She gritted her teeth.

     

      When she reached Mistress Corinne, the woman looked at her with distaste. “Go clean your face,” she ordered.  “You’re covered with filth.”

     

      Mariah forced her eyes to stay down but open, and to let no part of her shocked anger show on her face or in her posture.  Of course she was dirty.  At her mistress’s orders she had just pleasured five cunts. She managed to say evenly, “Yes, mistress,” and hurried to the washroom. 

     

      She washed her face and swished her mouth with water to rinse out the taste of the slavegirls.  Raising her head from the sink, sharp green eyes peered back at her from the mirror on the wall.  Although she was well-groomed – her mistress insisted upon that – she had lost most of her tan from the fields, and her skin was sallow, especially against her dark brown hair.  Did her misery show in her face?  Did defiance? Or the interminable longings of her body? She sighed.  Only if anyone cared to look.  And as her mistress chose to keep her working at the exchange rather than offering her to another human, she expected no one would.

     

      When Mariah returned to the dais her mistress’s back was towards her.  She was speaking with another human, tall, blue eyed, brown hair starting towards gray.  Mistress Dominique was her name.  Mariah had seen her a few times before, but wasn’t sure if she came to the exchange to pass the time with Mistress Corinne or to look for new slaves.

     

      Mistress Dominique glanced at Mariah as she kneeled, knees carefully spread, hands behind her head, eyes down.  “Isn’t that the one Jonas dropped off a while back?” she asked, surprised.  “With all the fuss?”

     

      Mistress Corinne glanced absent-mindedly at Mariah and nodded.  “Mmm-hmmm,” she said.

     

      “Why is she still here?”  Mistress Dominique asked.  “You surely aren’t keeping her for yourself.”

      

      “No, of course not,” Mistress Corinne said, offended.  “But I think Jonas might have been right – she’s only good as a torture cunt.  I don’t want to put her on display until I’m sure what to do with her.”

     

      Mistress Dominique raised her left eyebrow.  “She looks biddable enough to me.”

     

      Mistress Corinne shook her head.  “Looks can be deceiving. In the weeks that she’s been here I’ve let her have no satisfaction.  She hasn’t broken down once.”  Mistress Corinne pulled the back of Mariah’s hair, forcing her face up. “She’s just finished pleasuring a group of cunts, and look at her, kneeling as calmly as if she hasn’t a care in the world.  She’s either touching herself, or she’s entirely unnatural.” 

     

      Mariah felt as though the room was spinning.  Her struggle to show Mistress Corinne that she could be trusted, that she was obedient and worthy . . . and it was all a mindgame.

     

      Rage.  Swallowed quickly.

     

      But Mistress Dominique had seen.  “Stand up,” she ordered.  “Standard position.” 

     

      Mistress Corinne released her grip on Mariah, and she rose to her feet, her eyes down, her knees spread, her hands behind her head.

     

      “She’s dripping,” Mistress Dominique said, pointing to a Mariah’s crotch.  She walked over to her. “Look at me,” she ordered.

     

      Mariah didn’t want to.  She didn’t want Mistress Dominique to see the angry tears that had formed in her eyes, the surge of hatred she felt towards Mistress Corinne, worse than anything she had felt towards Master Jonas.  But she had no choice.  Biting her cheeks to control herself as best she could, she looked at Mistress Dominique.

     

      Mistress Dominique tsked.  “Poor thing,” she said.  “You’ve been so good, and no one’s noticed.”  Mariah’s throat tightened until it ached as much as her cunt, and her eyes burned.  “Would you like to leave here with me?”

     

      “Yes, Mistress,” Mariah whispered.

     

      “Can you be good for me for just a few more minutes?”  Mistress Dominique asked.

     

      The part of Mariah’s mind that could be rationale knew this was another mindgame. And  yet . . . the possibility of getting away from Mistress Corinne . . . she hated her.  “I’ll try, Mistress,” Mariah answered. 

     

      “Hands at your sides, then,” Mistress Dominique said.  As Mariah obeyed, Mistress Dominique walked behind her and pressed Mariah’s back against her own front.  She reached her hand around, under Mariah’s arm, pressing her forearm firmly against Mariah’s hip and abdomen.  With her forefinger she gently touched Mariah’s clitoris. 

     

      Mariah tried to step back, but Mistress Dominique was there, holding her firm.  The mistress didn’t move her finger as she asked, “A good slave would never come without permission, would she?”

     

      “No, mistress,” Mariah said, but she could already feel the blood rushing.

     

      “You just need to be good for a few minutes,” Mistress Dominique said, as she began to slide her finger up and down Mariah’s slit.  “Then you can leave with me.”

     

      Mariah closed her eyes.  She tried to block out the sensations, but she couldn’t. She balled her hands into fists, digging her fingernails into her flesh.  It didn’t help.

     

      Mistress Dominique moved her finger back up to Mariah’s clit and circled it. Mariah cried out,  “Please, Mistress, I won’t be able to stop it.  Please, no . . . ”  But Mistress Dominique continued.

       

      “Mistress, I’m going to come.  I can’t help it, please . . .”  Mistress Dominique moved her finger back down Mariah’s slit, giving Mariah relief for a moment.  But almost immediately she returned to Mariah’s clitoris, returned to slow firm circles around it.

     

      Mariah fought with everything she could.  She bit her cheeks and shook her head from side to side.  She tried to think of something far away, the fields, Rolanda, the rabbit.  But it was no good. 

     

      Mistress Dominique brought her other hand around and put it on the fleshy area just above Mariah’s clit, pushing down on it so that Mariah’s clit was pushed into her circling finger.  “Gaah,” Mariah groaned, shaking her head.  “No. . . No  . . . No . . . ”, but the explosion overtook her.  Mistress Dominique kept pushing down with her left hand and circling Mariah’s clit with her right index finger.  Mariah’s orgasm went on and on.  When at last it quieted, Mariah dropped to her knees, crying.

     

      “Let me have her,” Mistress Dominique said to Mistress Corinne.  “I can work with her.”

     

       ***

       Mariah woke the next morning earlier than usual.  When she opened the door from her sleeping room she saw Rose in intense concentration, cutting flowers and placing them by their stems in a large sponge.  As Mariah watched she picked the sponge up, held it at eye level, turned it around, put it down, rearranged the flowers so slightly that Mariah could detect no difference, and then did it again.

       Rose only noticed Mariah when she started across the living room towards the kitchen.  She shook her head, changing focus, and said, with only slightly excessive cheerfulness, “Good morning.  Would you like me to get you some food?”

       Mariah scowled at her.  “Don’t you have something to do for your master?”  she asked. 

      Rose answered, “Master Gabriel asked me to keep you company this morning.”

       “I don’t want your company,” Mariah said.

       At the look on Rose’s face, Mariah felt suddenly ashamed, as if she had pulled a kitten’s tail.  “Look, I’m sorry,” she said.  “I just don’t want you thinking that we can be friends.”

       “Oh,” Rose said softly, turning away.  Mariah watched her gather up the extra stems and leaves and put them in the trash can, and place the display she had created, riotous with color, in the middle of the table.  And then she wiped her eyes, quickly, as if she hoped Mariah would not notice.

       The girl was so young.  And there was something about her – not innocence, but something like it -- that made Mariah feel mean for keeping her distance.  Almost to herself she said, “Don’t you know what will happen when this mindgame is over?”  Rose shook her head, and Mariah realized she had spoken out loud.  Hardening herself, she said, “They’ll make me hurt you.” 

      She paused, then added fiercely, “They’ll make me take pleasure in hurting you.”  She turned away from Rose, blinking rapidly, and stared out the window into the quiet courtyard.  “It will be worse if . . . ”  She trailed off.

       Rose came up to her and laid her hand on Mariah’s forearm. “If that happens,” she said, “I’ll forgive you.”

       Mariah jerked her arm away from Rose and took a step away.  “Why are you nice to me?” she hissed.  “I’ve given you no reason.”

      Rose was surprised into saying, “Of course you have.”

     

      “No.”  Mariah folded her arms and narrowed her eyes.  “I’ve ignored you and sneered at you, nothing else.”

     

      “Not always,” Rose said.  When Mariah looked confused she said, “Do you remember when you first woke up, after you were hurt?  I gave you soup and you threw it because it wasn’t gruel.”  Mariah nodded. She vaguely recalled that through the haze of pain she had felt at the time.  “The bowl broke,” Rose continued.  “And when Master Gabriel came, you said you should be punished, not me.”

     

      “You hadn’t done anything wrong,” Mariah said.

     

       “Yes, I had,” Rose said earnestly.  “I hadn’t warned you the food wasn’t gruel. It scared you.  And you . . . you had just woken up, and were in pain, and you didn’t know where you were, and you didn’t know that Master Gabriel was an outlander, . . . and you tried to protect me.”

     

      “That’s nothing,” Mariah said flatly.  “Slaves help each other.”

     

        Rose shook her head and laughed a little.  “Are you that naïve?” she asked.  She turned away abruptly, after a moment changing direction towards the kitchen.  She returned with a bowl and a spoon, which she placed on the table.  Gesturing for Mariah to sit in front of them, she sat down as well.  Finally she took a deep breath, expelled it, and said, “I only  had a couple of assignments before Master Animal chose me.  The one right before was with a family, a large one. It should have been a good assignment, because there were four of us slaves there.  But . . .”  Rose looked away.

       “Not all slaves work well together,” Mariah shrugged. 

       Rose sniffled.  “I’ll tell you what it was like, but you have to eat.”  Mariah picked up her spoon indifferently, barely recognizing the slave gruel that Gabriel had determined she and Rose should continue to have for breakfast.  It tasted much better flavored by Rose with cinnamon and nutmeg and honey.

       Rose took another deep breath.  “They . . . the other slaves, I mean . . . they had been with each other for a long time, and when I came . . . they were a  group, and I wasn’t one of them.  They made me do all the work.  All the cleaning, all the cooking, everything, for eight humans and the four of us.”  Her voice broke. 

      “If the work was too much for me, they would tell the master and mistress that they had done their share and I hadn’t, and I would be punished.  They would secretly watch and laugh.  Sometimes they would do things – tip over the trash, put food back in the oven so it would burn -- just so they could watch me get in trouble.”

     

      Rose put her head down on her arms, crying.  After a minute she looked up, her cheeks wet and blotchy.  “It wasn’t just in the apartment,” she said.  “I had a bracelet, everyone nearby – even the neighboring slaves – knew they could do whatever they wanted to me.”

     

      She looked Mariah in the eye, and Mariah found she could not look away.  “The hall monitor wouldn’t let me use the washing machine unless I let him buttfuck me.  Dry.  Every week.”  Her said with a bitter little laugh, “I was a slave’s slave.”

     

      “I . . . “ Mariah began.  She didn’t know what to say.

     

      “And you say slaves help each other?  No!” Rose interrupted her, fiercely.  “You helped me when you thought Master Gabriel might torture or kill you for it.  You can deny it, but I know you’re brave and you’re good!  And if I want to be nice to you, well . . . you don’t have to be my friend, but you can’t stop me.”

     

      Mariah was just staring at Rose, overwhelmed by her story.  “I’m sorry,” she said to Rose, not sure if she was apologizing for her own behavior or for that of the slaves Rose had lived with. 

     

      “Don’t pity me,” Rose said, her voice still hoarse.  “Belonging to Master Animal after that . . . well, I don’t think I would appreciate how lucky I am if I hadn’t been through it.” 

      She and Mariah sat in silence for a few minutes.  Mariah was embarrassed for obsessing over Master Gabriel’s refusal to fuck her.  How easy it was to forget that in this mindgame she had safety, food, as much freedom as her bracelet could grant. 

     

       “Why did that family send you back to the Exchange?” Mariah asked finally. 

     

      “They didn’t,” Rose said.  “Master Animal asked for me.”

     

      Mariah raised her eyebrows in surprise.  Rose continued, “He was painting a portrait of them.  One day, in the early morning, I couldn’t help myself.  I snuck over and looked at his canvass.  Master Animal let himself into the apartment just then, and saw me.  I was scared, but I hadn’t touched anything and he didn’t seem to mind.  After that he would talk to me sometimes, when he was setting up and no one else was around. 

     

      “When the portrait was done Master John and Mistress Rafaela threw a big unveiling party for it.  It was practically a revel.  I prepared for it all day and served all night, and after everyone left it was my job to clean up.  By the early afternoon I was so tired I sat down, just for a minute.  Master John saw me.  The other slaves claimed they had been working all morning to clean up and I had done nothing.

     

      “To punish me, my master cuffed my hands behind my back.  He put nipple clamps on me and attached the chain to the ceiling.”  At Mariah’s look she said, “It wasn’t that bad, really.  The chain was loose enough that I could stand with my feet flat.  But I was so tired that I was afraid that I would fall asleep and my nipples would be torn off.”  She shuddered.

     

      “Master Animal came in then, to get some supplies he had left behind.  Master John said if there was ever anything he could do for him, Master Animal should let him know.  And that’s when Master Animal said he wanted me.”  She smiled at the memory.  “When he released me from the clamps I collapsed into his arms. He had to carry me home.” 

     

      “He has good taste,” Mariah said, the compliment making her voice rough.

     

      Rose shook her head.  “I’m not his taste, “ she said.  “I think he just felt sorry for me.”

     

      “Why would you think that?” Mariah asked.  “He likes you well enough.”

     

      Rose shrugged.  “People are always surprised to see me with him,” she said.  “Raul – he’s the hall monitor here – says all his other cunts were tall blondes with big boobs and . . .”

     

      “Stupid?”  Mariah asked. 

     

      Rose nodded and blushed a little.  “That’s what Raul says.  If Master Gabriel hadn’t come along, I’m sure he would have traded me in long since.”

     

      “I don’t think so,” Mariah said slowly.  “Yesterday, I tried to . . . I tried to get him to fuck me.  I surprised him when he was napping.  And he wouldn’t . . . he said he only fucks you.” 

     

      Rose stared at her silently, and Mariah realized suddenly what she had said, and done. “I’m sorry,” she said.  “I know you have unnatural feelings for him. I wasn’t thinking of you when . . .”

     

      But Rose smiled.  “He said he only fucks me?” she asked.

     

      Mariah nodded, and Rose’s smile deepened. 

     

      They sat quietly for a few minutes while Mariah finished her gruel.  Then she looked at Rose.  “That time with the bowl of soup . . .  You defended me too.  You said it wasn’t my fault.”

     

      Rose shook her head.  “That was different,” she said.  “I knew Master Animal and Master Gabriel.  I knew they wouldn’t hurt me.  You didn’t know them.”

     

      She stood up and started to clear Mariah’s bowl.  Mariah stopped her.  “You don’t have to do that for me,” she said. “I don’t want . . .”

     

      Rose said with an impish smile, “Friends help each other.”

     

      Mariah didn’t contradict her.

     

Chapter 22:  Entrances and Exits

      "Let me have her," Mistress Dominique said to Mistress Corinne.  "I can work with her."        

     

      On her knees, wrung out from her orgasm, Mariah allowed herself to wipe her eyes, to feel a glimmer of hope, to say, "Thank you, Mistress."

     

      "Tut," Mistress Dominique responded.  "It’s nothing personal.  I don’t like waste, is all." 

     

      "Surely you won’t take her without punishing her?" Mistress Corinne said. 

     

      Mistress Dominique laughed.  "Oh, she’ll miss you soon enough, I promise you." 

     

      ***

       Mariah followed Rose to the kitchen, not sure what to do with herself.  She watched Rose rinse her dishes, and dry them, and put them away.  Finally she asked, "What do you usually do in the mornings?  Not even you can spend all your time cleaning Master Animal’s apartment." 

      Realizing how disdainful her question sounded, she crossed her arms and raised her chin.  But Rose answered, earnestly as always, "Master Animal usually sends me to the exercise yard in the morning.  After I’m groomed, I meet him at the revel room where he’s painting his mural."

     

      "You mean that big picture on a wall that everyone keeps talking about?" Mariah asked.

     

      Rose’s nodded. "Would you like to come see it?  Master Animal won’t mind, and Master Gabriel said you could walk with me, if you like." 

      She looked down, shy, and Mariah understood how much Rose wanted to go.  But she scowled. "With you, he said?  If he doesn’t want me walking around on my own, he shouldn’t have given me a bracelet." 

     

      Rose asked, "Should he take it away, then?"

     

      Mariah blinked and gave in with a surly shrug. The slightest shadow of smile crossed Rose’s lips. 

      ***

      Although Mariah had been in the corridors of the mansion only twice before, she paid little attention to them as she hurried to keep up with Mistress Dominique.  Her body was still sluggish, still covered with a sheen of sweat.  She struggled to think.  What would her punishment be?  Could it be worse than how Master Jonas had terrorized her? 

       Mistress Dominique led her through a door, and to her surprise Mariah suddenly found herself outside, not in a courtyard but outside the mansion.  Her eyes sought the horizon, which she had not seen since she left the fields.  It was a cloudy day, but a ray of sun broke through, visible on its way down to the grass.  Suddenly Mariah was no longer afraid.  She had no power over her punishment; just as she did not deserve it, she could do nothing to stop it. 

       Not this time. 

       She was outside the mansion, now, but there was another outside – outside the walls.  How had Rolanda managed it?  Surely she hadn’t been led there as Mariah had been led through a door to the open air.

       Noticing that Mariah had slowed her pace, Mistress Dominique snapped her fingers, and Mariah hastened to catch up.  But as she did so she looked around, memorizing where the door had been, what was behind it, what lay ahead. 

     

***

       Mariah blinked in surprise as she and Rose entered the revel room.  She had assumed Animal would be alone, painting on a wall. But instead he was standing on a dais on the far side of the room, a group of people standing in a semi-circle in front of him.  He was pointing with a clean, dry paintbrush to various parts of a painting on an easel next to him, talking animatedly. 

       Rose clutched Mariah’s arm.  "He’s teaching," she said.  "Let’s go listen."  She pulled Mariah with her across the room to the edge of the group.  No one took any note of them.

       Mariah thought the picture on the canvass was odd.  It was just dots and shapes and squiggles, as far as she could tell.  Animal reached his hand out to a man in the group, who stepped up and took a bow, to applause. Someone called out a question about his pigments, and most of the others wandered off.  Mariah glanced over at Rose, whose eyes were shining.  "Isn’t it amazing?" she whispered to Mariah. 

      As the man took his picture off the easel, Animal noticed Rose and Mariah.  "Good, you’re here," he said to Rose. "Fetch a jug of the linseed oil.  I’ll need you to mix some more burnt sienna."  

     

      "Yes, Master," Rose said.  "Would it be all right if Mariah helps me?"

     

      Animal had turned away, but he snapped back to them.  "No!" he said. "I won’t have my paints sabotaged." He glowered as Rose stood awkwardly for a moment. 

     

      Mariah nudged her. "Go.  Do your master’s bidding." Rose, looking upset, walked towards the storage closet.

     

      Mariah looked deliberately at Animal, and then fell to her knees in front of him.

     

      Animal sighed impatiently.  "Stand up.  Gabriel wouldn’t want you down there."

     

      Mariah ignored his order.  "This slave begs your permission to speak," she said. 

     

      Animal crossed his arms and eyed her suspiciously.  "What is it?"

     

      Mariah cleared her throat.  "I want you to know that what I did yesterday . . . " she looked Animal in the eye. "I’ll never do it again." 

     

      "I know you won’t," Animal responded, his voice hard.  "I meant what I said.  If you do . . . " His hand went to his whip. 

      "That has nothing to do with it," she snapped. Then she took a deep breath.  "It’s just . . . I’m sorry."  She glared and blushed at the same time.

     

      Animal eyed her suspiciously, caressing the handle of his whip. "What are you up to?" he asked.

     

      "Nothing," Mariah said.  She raised her chin and added, "Master." Her face was defiant, but she was sucking in her cheeks. Even so, her lower lip was trembling slightly.

     

      Animal slowly let go of his whip handle.  He sighed.  "Okay," he said. "But you’re still not mixing my pigments."

     

      Mariah stood up.  "I would never want to." She and Animal eyed each other.  Suddenly Animal flashed a grin, and Mariah smiled slightly in response before looking away.     

     

      Rose walked up staggering under the weight of a glass jug filled with liquid.  She placed it on the edge of the dais.  "May I show Mariah the room, Master?" she asked.  "She won’t touch anything, I promise."

     

      Animal looked at her dolefully.  "All right," he said.  "But don’t take too long.  I need those pigments mixed."

     

      "Thank you, my lord," Rose said.  Mariah accepted her hand and allowed herself to be led away. Animal stared after them, bemused.   

     

      ***

     

      Mistress Dominique’s training center was a large room divided into sections, like an overgrown apartment.  There were several kitchen areas and as many living room and bedroom areas, but no walls between the spaces. 

     

      About twenty slaves, all young like Mariah, were scattered throughout the center, cooking and cleaning.  A  mistress who resembled Mistress Dominique but was much younger – about the same age as the slaves – lounged on one of the couches while a slave dick massaged her feet.

     

      Mistress Dominique approached that area and clapped her hands twice.  The slaves put down what they were doing and hurried to her. One by one they fell to their knees. Mariah stood awkwardly, not sure what was expected of her.

     

      Mistress Dominique pulled Mariah forward.  Without introduction she said, "This cunt orgasmed without permission."  A murmur rose among the kneeling slaves, along with Mariah’s fear. "Her punishment will begin now." 

     

      She led Mariah to a plush red armless chair, and sat down in it.  "Over my knees," she said to Mariah.  Mariah, unsure of what she meant, did not react immediately. Mistress Dominique pulled Mariah so that she was lying with her stomach on Mistress’ Dominique’s thighs, her hands dangling uselessly in front of her. Mistress Dominique grabbed her hair and pulled her forward a few inches.  Mariah felt nauseous with her head hung so low.

     

      Mistress Dominique smacked Mariah’s butt with her palm.  It stung, but was nothing compared to the whip.  Mistress Dominique struck her again, in exactly the same spot.  Then again, and again, and again. On the fifth hit Mariah gasped.  It still wasn’t as bad as the whip but it hurt.

     

      Mistress Dominique moved her hand lower, to the crease between Mariah’s butt and her thigh, and hit her there until Mariah whimpered. 

     

      A harder smack made Mariah grunt.  Mistress Dominique began to hit her rapidly all over her rear end.

      

      Mariah had been smacked before, on the face, on the butt. But she had never been spanked before, not like this, drawn out, deliberate, terrible.  It was so much more personal than the whip, her mistress aware of every squirm and sound. With the whip she could hide inside her head, but that was impossible now. Even worse, she could feel the warmth, the movement of her mistress’s thighs beneath her, of her stomach at her side.  This was a person who was hurting her, not a disembodied strip of leather. 

      

      "Spread you legs," her mistress ordered Mariah.  Mariah obeyed.  She felt the inevitable fingering of her asshole, her mistress pushing her finger only so slightly into her.  Of course Master Jonas had broken her in there, but this was different. The surcease from the spanking combined with her Mistress’s gentle teasing made Mariah’s cunt gush.

     

      Mistress Dominique continued to finger her for a few minutes.  Mariah tried to block out the sensation.  Mistress Dominique pulled her head up by her hair and said to her, "Look at them." She was forced to look at the kneeling slaves who watched her, some mockingly, some pityingly, some merely bored.  Her eyes stung.

     

      Mistress Dominique returned to spanking her.  The blows were not harder than before but they hurt much more.  Every smack reverberated inside her, in her brain, in her cunt.  With each blow she grunted, making a steady "uh uh uh" sound.

     

      Mistress Dominique returned to her butthole, gently pushing her finger all the way in before Mariah was even aware that she had stopped spanking her again.  Mariah was so aroused, it was as if her mistress were fingering her cunt, not her ass.  And then she was fingering her cunt. Mistress Dominique pulled her finger slowly out of Mariah’s butt and traced a slow path to her sex.  She entered Mariah’s vagina ever so slightly, but then pulled out. 

     

      The spanking began again.  Although Mistress Dominique used only her hand, every blow felt like a paddle.  Mariah’s soft grunts changed to groans.  The slaves in front of her swam in her tears.  It was awful.  It went on and on. 

     

      Now her groans turned to half screams.  And then Mistress Dominique was pushing her finger into Mariah’s vagina again.  By the time Mariah stopped screaming she was gasping.  Mistress Dominique withdrew her finger, and this time trailed it lower still, to her slit.

     

      Mariah held herself rigid.  Surely Mistress Dominique would not touch her clit.  She could not.  She must not.

     

      "Naughty," Mistress Dominique said to her.  "In the midst of punishment, you just want to come, don’t you?"

     

      Mariah could only groan.

     

      "Answer me," Mistress Dominique said, and she did touch Mariah’s clit, but so lightly, like the tip of a feather.  "Yes, mistress," Mariah said, and her voice was a squeak.  If only she could close her legs.

     

      Then Mistress Dominique was spanking her again, and then she was touching her again.  The pain, the pleasure.  She must not come, she could not. 

     

       Mistress Dominique was stroking her slit, her pubes, her lips.  And even though she had not touched her clit again, Mariah could feel the orgasm building.

       And then Mistress Dominique pulled her hand away.  Mariah tried to brace herself for the spanking, but it did not come.  Instead, Mistress Dominique merely rested her hand on Mariah’s ass.  That alone burned.  The sensation traveled from her buttocks to her sex.  Mariah wondered if it was possible to come from no more.

       "You came before without permission," Mistress Dominique said.  "Are you going to do it again?"

       "I’m trying not to, Mistress," Mariah said, desperately.

       "Mmm, I see that," Mistress Dominique said.  "Stand up."

       It was so unexpected Mariah thought she must have misheard.  Mistress Dominique slapped her bruised ass once. "I said, stand up," she repeated.  Mariah scrambled up, so quickly that she felt dizzy and had to steady herself on the back of her mistress’s chair.

       "Thank me," Mistress Dominique said.

       Mariah fell to her knees. "This slave humbly thanks you for spanking her," Mariah said, careful to keep her legs spread wide.

       "Beg me to allow you to come," Mistress Dominique said.

       "Mistress, please, let me come," Mariah said, and she placed her forehead on the floor and inched to her mistress’s feet to kiss them.

       "Very well," Mistress Dominique said.  "Follow me."

       Mariah stood up again, more slowly than before, trying to remember to breathe, trying to remember to keep her feet wide.   Mistress Dominique was walking past the slaves on the floor to the far corner of the room.  There was a large block of wood there, its height slightly lower than Mariah’s waist.  It was wide at the bottom and tapered to the top so that the top edge was only a dull line about a quarter inch wide.

       "Hands behind your head," Mistress Dominique said.  Mariah obeyed, assuming the standard position. 

       "Mount it," Mistress Dominique said.  "As soon as you do, you can come."

       Mariah stood uncertainly.  Was she supposed to jump on?  But Mistress Mariah led her by the elbow to the side of the slab.  "Just straddle it," she said.  Mariah lifted her left leg, award of how grotesque she looked, and slid it over one side, until the top edge of the wood was scraping her inner thigh.  Then she was stuck.

       Mistress Dominique snapped her fingers, and a slave came over.  To Mariah’s horror, he lifted her by the waist and set her down so that her crotch was on the thin top edge of the wood. "Lean forward," he whispered to her, and then her clit was pressing into the wood, and she came, struggling not to topple over.  And then all of her weight was on her clit, and the orgasm ended, and there was only bruising pain.   

       

     

     

       

      Chapter 23: Past and present

     

     

      Rose led Mariah to the center of the revel hall.  Sunlight streamed through the windows, making Mariah squint a little. Easels were spaced in front of the walls, and a few scaffoldings were scattered around. Here and there was a random piece of furniture – a somewhat bedraggled sofa, a red armchair, an empty bathtub, contextless.

     

      The walls had a line of molding about five feet up.  Below they were freshly painted a slightly gray off-white. Above, Animal had begun sections of his mural.   

     

      Rose turned Mariah so that she was facing a wide panel opposite the main door.  On top of a cool green background a picture was taking shape:  an unkempt bed in which a figure lay, perhaps a woman, perhaps holding an infant.  A group of people surrounded the bed.  The picture was to such a scale that the large window in the wall seemed the size of a normal bedroom window. 

     

      Mariah's eye was drawn to the panel to the right, this picture complete, or nearly so.  In it an older slave woman sat in a rocking chair, holding a little human boy, crooning to him. A human man looked on, while a human woman's back was turned,  her face not visible.  Mariah could see the tenderness in the slave's face, the placidity in the child's, the satisfaction in the man's. 

     

      "Master Animal won't let anyone else work on the first two panels," Rose told Mariah.  "But the apprentices are allowed to help with the next one." 

     

      The third panel showed a party in a courtyard, humans dancing and slaves serving.  The focal point was a little girl, watching the festivities, wide-eyed as she held the hand of a slave dick. 

     

      "Each apprentice gets to paint one person," Rose told Mariah. "Master Animal says that creates variety."  She paused, twirling a strand of her hair, and added, quietly, "But he hovers over them so much it's really all his work."

     

      "Where are the apprentices, then?" asked Mariah, looking around.  Most of the crowd that had surrounded Animal when Mariah and Rose came into the room had left.  Animal was on the far side of the room, chatting with the couple that remained while he loaded material onto a scaffolding. 

     

      Rose shrugged.  "They come and go. But mostly they go.  I think Master Animal gave them the third panel to entice them to stay, but . . ."  She sighed pensively.  "Master Gabriel has the same problem.  People who say they want to learn healing from him, but wander off after a few days."  She looked over at her master. "I wish . . ." she said, but she didn't continue. 

     

      Master Animal had caught her eye.  Rose immediately started over to him, bringing Mariah with her.  As they approached, the man Animal had been talking to shook his hand, and the woman gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.  They both turned to go.  Animal continued organizing the scaffolding.  "Clarice and her cunt were supposed to be here half an hour ago to model for me," he said. He frowned at Rose.

     

      "Would you me to take a note to them, Master?" Rose asked.

     

      "You know it would do no good," Animal growled. 

     

      The door opened with a squeak and Animal looked over hopefully.  When he saw it was Gabriel he frowned and sighed, but Gabriel was holding the door for someone behind him.  A thin woman with strawberry blonde hair tumbling over a sleeveless green dress walked in, followed by three slave dicks.  One of them was carrying a package.

     

      Animal started, and stared, and started again, and then a huge grin broke onto his face and he hurried toward her.  "Amalie!" he boomed.  "The wanderer returns!" He hugged her, then pulled back to arm's length to look her over. "When did you get back?"

     

      Mariah looked at Rose, who shrugged and shook her head. 

     

      "Three days ago," Amalie said.  She snapped her fingers and the slaves who had followed her fell to their knees, but looked at her adoringly.  "Aren't they sweet?"  She patted one on the head.  "I put in an order for them before I left, and they were just finishing their training when I got back.  Best thing I ever did.  This is the first time I've left my quarters. I came straight to you." She smiled prettily.

     

      Animal turned to Gabriel, who was standing between Rose and Mariah, and gestured him to come forward.  "I want you to meet my friend," he said to Amalie.  "This is Gabriel, a healer, from Harmony." 

     

      "So you're the one I've been hearing about," Amalie said, still smiling.  "The paragon." 

     

      Before Gabriel could reply she glanced at Mariah and Rose.  "And that one must be the runaway," she said, gesturing at Mariah.  "She's got trouble written all over her face."  Mariah stiffened but stared at Amalie's feet.  Animal started to say something but Amalie interrupted him.  "Where's your current cunt?  You never travel alone."

     

      Animal gestured to Rose, who fell to her knees.  "This scrawny thing?" Amalie asked.  "She's hardly your type." Rose and Mariah risked a glance at each other and then quickly looked away.

     

      Animal shrugged.  "She's good at mixing paint," he said mildly. 

     

      "You let her mix . . . ?"  Amalie trailed off as she turned back to Rose. "Standard position," she ordered.  Animal didn't interfere as Rose scrambled to her feet and placed her hands behind her head, elbows pointing out, eyes down, face red.

     

      "I see your master is still a pansy," Amalie said.  "Do you like mixing his paints?" 

     

      Animal started to say something, but stopped himself.

     

      "Yes, Mistress," Rose said, her eyes flitting to Animal as she answered. 

      

      But Amalie wasn't listening. She reached out and touched Animal's arm.  "I was sorry to hear about your mother.  I would have come to her burial if I had been here."

     

      Animal shrugged and pulled away.  "You know she was no loss to me," he growled. He snapped his fingers at Rose and she lowered her arms.

     

      In the awkward silence Gabriel asked, "Have you been traveling, Amalie?" he asked.

     

      Amalie was still holding onto Animal's arm.  "Oh, yes," she said.  "I've been to the ocean.  Have you ever been?"

     

      Gabriel shook his head.  "Harmony is in the opposite direction," he said.  "We only have songs about it."

     

      Amalie turned back to Animal.  "You must go some day.  The sun reflecting a million colors off the waves; the way the quality of the light changes throughout the day; the endless horizon . . ."  She trailed off.

     

      "Did you bring me a picture of it?" Animal asked eagerly.

     

       "Don't be ridiculous.  I could never do it justice," Amalie said. 

     

       "You've talent enough, if you'd apply yourself," Animal said, frowning.

     

      "And you know I never will," Amalie responded lightly.  Before Animal could say anything she added, "But I did bring you a present."  She gestured to the slave with the package, who carried it to her.  She handed it to Animal.  Carefully he opened the box, and brought out two wine glasses.  They were identical, each with a swirl of maroon pigment traveling from the base, up the stem and around the bowl.

     

      Animal handed the box to Rose and held one of the glasses up to the light, turning it.  "It's beautiful," he said.  "Flawless." 

     

      "And practical," Amalie said. She laughed again, and Animal joined in, as if she had brought up an old joke between them.  She continued, "The sea sand is amazing.  I brought some back with me, along with enough water glasses and windows to satisfy the Bearer.  But I'm not sure if the forge here can do it justice."  She sighed almost despondently, but then brightened.  "Now, show me your mural.  I want to see everything."

     

      Animal led Amalie to the first panel.  She nodded.  "Your perspective has improved," she said.  "Solis would be proud of you."  She walked slowly over to the next panel, the one with the picture of the slave holding the toddler.

     

      Amalie stared at the panel.  "You didn't," she half-choked.

     

      Animal shrugged, but said nothing. When he wouldn't meet her eye, she shook him.  "How could you?"

     

      "It's my painting," Animal said.  "The Bearer gave me full rights to paint what I want."

     

      "But . . ." Amalie sputtered.  "With your mother barely in the grave . . . "

     

      Animal took a step back.  "Leave my mother out of it.  She has nothing to do with this."

     

      "Clearly," Amalie said dryly,

      

      Animal shrugged again and looked fixedly ahead. 

     

      Amalie studied the panel.  "That's you as a baby; I didn't know you then but you've painted your own face clear enough."  As one, Gabriel, Mariah, and Rose looked at the painted toddler's face.  They had only known Animal with his long, unkempt beard which covered so much of his features; but they could see now that the color of the eyes, the shape of the nose, were his. 

     

      Amalie continued, "And your father, of course.  He was a sweet man."  She stopped, almost wistful, remembering. 

     

      Animal crossed his arms in front of him, while Amalie continued.

     

      "But you're not being held by your father or your mother.  That's your father's slave. What was her name?"

     

      "Edelia," Animal said sullenly. 

     

      "That's right," Amalie continued.  "She was older when I knew her, of course."  She looked at the painting closely. Then she glanced at Rose.  "Did you have your cunt model for her?"

     

      "No," said Animal.  "I painted from memory." 

     

      Amalie looked back and forth between the painting and Rose.  "Either there's a resemblance, or you've made one," she said.  Rose blushed, but stared at the slave woman in the picture.

     

        Amalie went on, "But that's not your mother. . ."

     

      "Of course not," Animal snapped.  "I have no intention of immortalizing her.  I used a model." 

     

      Animal and Amalie glared at each other for a moment, and then Amalie burst out laughing.  "I'm sorry," she said.  "I've been away too long, and too far from comfort.  Of course you painted the scene this way; you could do no other."  Animal relaxed, and Amalie turned slowly around, examining the room.

      

      "It's the project of a lifetime," she said at length.  "I see that.  But your paints will fade.  What are you thinking letting the sunlight stream in like this?"

     

      "I need light to paint," Animal said.  "At the end I'll deal with the windows."

     

      Amalie furrowed her brow in concentration.  She walked to one of the windows and tapped on it.  "Glazed glass is what you need," she said.  "It's whitish instead of clear.  Let's in a certain amount of light, but it's muted.  I'll make the windows for you, of course." Before Animal could respond she glanced out the window again, and started.  "Look at the time," she said.  "I promised Aunt Matilda I'd meet her for tea."  She glanced fondly at Animal, and then turned to Gabriel.  "Would you like to come by my quarters tonight?"

     

      Gabriel blinked, confused.  "Why?" he asked.  "Are you ill?" Animal snorted.

     

      Amalie reached out to touch Gabriel's arm as she had touched Animal's before.  "For comfort," she smiled.  She gestured to the three slaves, who looked at her with puppy love.  "For variety."

     

      Gabriel blinked three times rapidly, and removed Amalie's hand from his arm.  "Erm," he said.  "No thanks." 

     

      Amalie shrugged.  "Suit yourself," she said. "If you change your mind, Animal knows where I live."  She hugged Animal quickly, snapped her finger for her slaves to follow, and left, Gabriel gazing after her as if stunned. 

     

      Chapter 24:  Darkness

     

      Mariah did not know how long she suffered on the saw horse, how long she rocked from her clit to her tailbone on the thin slice of wood, bruising, bruising, bruising.  After a time the pain in her shoulders was almost as great as the pain below, as she forced herself to keep position with her hands behind her neck, her fingers swelling in their desperate grip. 

     

      At last two dicks assisted her down.  They helped her unfold her arms, and lay her on her front on a mat on the floor, where they massaged her shoulders, back, and arms.  Mariah was too exhausted to move.  "You're allowed to sleep now," one of the dicks said to her.  They put a sheet on her.  Mariah closed her eyes and fell into a sleep she could not distinguish from wakefulness. 

     

      ***

     

      After Amalie left, Gabriel, Rose, and Mariah as one riveted to study the picture Animal had painted, they now knew, of himself as a toddler, held by a slave woman, his father nearby, his mother with her back turned.  Gabriel was the first to turn, speculatively, to Animal, who stood, arms crossed, feet wide, scowling.  Mariah turned to him next, and, at last, Rose. 

     

      Into the silence Animal said, "Her name was Edelia."  He took a step towards the picture he had painted.  "She was my father's slave.  He was fond of her and she . . . she was devoted to him."  His voice caught, and his hands clenched.  "And she was always kind to me." 

     

      He took a deep breath. "When my father became ill – it was a slow, wasting disease, at first his limbs shook, and then after a while he couldn't move," Animal said, looking at Gabriel, who nodded in confirmation, "she was always at his side.  She did far more than her duty.  When his time came, about five years ago, I was there, but it was Edelia who eased his passing."

     

      "And your mother?" Gabriel asked quietly.

     

      Animal gave a short, bitter laugh.  "She cared nothing for us," he said.  "Her only interest was the ponyboy races." 

     

      "It must have been very difficult for her," Gabriel said, "her place usurped."

     

      Animal turned to him with a glare so stone cold that Gabriel took a step back.  He spoke slowly, clearly.  "After my father's funeral I got drunk.  The next day, when I sobered up, I went back to their apartment to collect Edelia.  I wasn't sure what I would do with her, but I planned to keep her with me until I figured it out – maybe the infirmary could use her help, or . . . " He trailed off, and then shook his head.  "It didn't matter.  By the time I came to their quarters, the day after the funeral, it was too late.  My mother had . . . "

     

      Animal couldn't continue.  He stared from Gabriel to Rose to Mariah to the ground.  At last he said, in a hoarse whisper, "My mother had sent her to the dogs." 

     

      And suddenly Rose was in front of him, and her arms were around him, and he was leaning into her.  He sobbed, once, and pulled back, hastily wiping his eyes.

     

      He cleared his throat.  "And now my mother's dead, too," he said.  He added, in a fierce whisper, "And if my loathing of her hastened her journey, so much the better." 

     

     

***

      Mariah awoke to activity around her.  A group of slaves sat on the floor near her, eating gruel from wooden bowls.  In the nearby kitchen area, others were clattering pots and spoons as they washed them. 

     

      Mariah began to sit up, but grunted as her sore shoulders reminded her of yesterday's torture.  A cunt glanced at her but shrugged and looked away, uninterested. 

     

      Mariah struggled up.  She picked up the sheet that had covered her throughout the night, wondering what to do with it.  The cunt who had glanced at her pointed with her thumb to a basket against the wall.  "Put it over there," she said, and turned away again.

     

      Mariah flushed.  That cunt had seen her the day before, knew that she had been punished for lack of control, seen her spanked and molested and forced to come while being tortured. 

     

      Mariah couldn't look at her, or any of the other slaves. They must be disgusted by her weakness. 

     

      She placed the sheet in the basket, keeping her legs wide as she walked, pulsing with pain from the day before.  Glancing around, she located a cauldron of gruel and nearby bowls and spoons.  She served herself, still not looking at anyone.

     

      Mistress Dominique clapped her hands.  Mariah followed the other slaves as they made their way to the center of the large room, where Mariah had been tortured the day before. 

     

      A dick knelt before the Mistress.  He was thin but muscular. Mistress Dominique placed her hand on his head, flattening his black corkscrew curls.  "Tell them what you did, Bini," she ordered.

     

      Bini's eyes filled with tears.  "I . . ." he said, but turned to look at Mistress Dominique.  Her face was implacable, merciless. Bini turned back to his fellow slaves.  "I touched myself," he spat out.  The tears overflowed his eyes.  "I was asleep.  I didn't know I was doing it.  Please, mistress . . ."

     

      Mariah suddenly realized there was nothing unusual about her humiliation the day before.  It was just part of the mindgame. It was foolish to be embarrassed. Her every action, every feeling of pleasure and pain, had been forced on her by Mistress Dominique, just as Bini would be tortured now for an action over which he had no control. 

     

      Mariah looked surreptitiously around. There were about twenty slaves in the room.  Mistress Dominique and the younger woman who looked like her were the only humans.  They could not control all the slaves all the time. 

     

      Mariah vowed to seek out those times when the humans could not control her, to make the most of them, to exercise her will. But, feeling Mistress Dominique's eyes on her, she looked obediently back at Bini, who cowered and sobbed.

     

      ***

     

       As Rose and Mariah left the revel room, Rose laden with several wooden palettes Animal had ordered her to clean, Animal touched Gabriel's sleeve.  "I need to harvest juniper berries for a green pigment," he said.  "Walk with me?"

       Gabriel raised his eyebrows in surprise. "I wouldn't have thought to ask you.  I've been needing the berries myself, to replenish my supply of arthritis serum"

       Animal bowed with a sarcastic flourish before turning to the storage closet to grab two baskets.  Handing one to Gabriel, he led him through the door that was beneath the first panel of the mural.  As they walked across the lawn both men were quiet, lost in their own thoughts.

       Animal finally said, "About Amalie . . ."  He tugged at his beard.  "There's nothing between us. She's an old friend, almost like a sister."

       "I could see that," Gabriel said.  "I'm glad for you that she has returned." 

      Animal reddened slightly as he said, "So you didn't turn her down on my account?"  

       Gabriel began to laugh, but stopped himself when he saw Animal's worried expression.  "No," he said.  "I just wasn't interested." 

       Animal's worried look deepened.  "Why not?  She's beautiful, vivacious . . ." 

       Gabriel frowned.  "As are many women here," he said evenly.  "I'm just not interested."

       They had reached the road that circled the lawn.  As they crossed it, Animal said, "I'm worried about you."  He picked at a stray straw that poked up from the handle of the basket he carried.  

       Gabriel raised his eyebrows but said nothing.  They walked in silence for a few minutes, until Animal took a deep breath and said, "You won't fuck slaves, and I know you haven't fucked any humans since you arrived, I would have heard the gossip . . ."

       Gabriel exhaled quickly.  He flushed, but whether from annoyance or embarrassment Animal did not know.  Animal pressed on, "It's not healthy.  You must be bursting." 

       Gabriel stopped walking.  He said, too evenly, "My sex life is none of your concern, even in this place.  I'm neither your  your lover nor your patient.  Nor your slave," he added darkly.

      Animal entered onto a path through the kitchen gardens.  "Of course not.  You’re my . . ." He broke off, struggling to find the right word, and then said instead, "The Bearer told me to take care of you."

     

      Gabriel refrained from retorting that the Bearer had told Rose, not Animal, to take care of him.  He followed Animal into the gardens, but stopped at a large planter containing mint.  He plucked a sprig and crushed it in his fingers, using the pretense of smelling it to inhale deeply, steadying himself. Animal waited for him, pinching off a sprig of mint himself and rolling it between his fingers.  Gabriel said, finally, "Set yourself at ease that my choices are my own.  I won't make love to any mistress, whether your friend or not." 

     

      Animal blinked several times in rapid succession.  "So that's it, is it?" he said. "I didn't pick up on it, but then, you're an outlander . . ."

     

      "I've made no secret of it," Gabriel said shortly. 

     

      Neither of them said anything for a minute.  Animal began walking again, but was staring off to the horizon as if searching for a particular cloud.  Gabriel followed, equally silent.

     

      At last Animal said, his voice strained, "My interests don't go that way, I'd need to be on the receiving end . . ." 

       Gabriel looked confused, and then he realized what Animal was offering.  "No, I didn't . . ."  Then he stopped, his anger and embarrassment dissipating.  He craned his neck so he could check out Animal's backside.  "Well, it's nice and plump," he said, "and if your interests don't go that way you're probably good and tight . . ." 

       Animal blanched, and Gabriel burst out laughing.  "Your virtue is safe with me," he said.  "My interests don't go that way either." 

       Animal let out a sigh of relief.  He unconsciously put his free hand behind him as he asked, "But you said . . . you're not interested in women either."

       Gabriel was still laughing a little, but he responded, mock-seriously, "Surely you know there are some people who have little sex drive?  It's a well-known medical phenomenon."

       Animal looked at Gabriel uncertainly.  "You're kidding again, right?" he said. 

       Gabriel nodded.  "I'm kidding again," he assured Animal with a rueful smile. 

       Animal shook his head.  He held up his forefinger.  "You don't fuck slaves, you told me that yesterday," he said.  He held up his middle finger next to his forefinger.  "You like women."  He held up his ring finger. "You like sex."  He held up his pinkie and waved his hand in a chopping motion.  "You've got to fuck human women, then."

       "No!" Gabriel said angrily.  When Animal startled at his tone, he continued, "To make love to a rapist?  Give comfort to a torturer?  I could never . . ."  His eyes watered with the aggravation, the despair, he had felt almost every moment since crossing the gate into Riviera.  "I'd die first," he said, his voice low. 

       They had reached the stand of juniper trees.  Animal put his hand on Gabriel's basket, stopping him from reaching for the light blue berries that hung in bunches.  "Look, I feel for you.  But you can't keep your seed inside you.  It's poison." 

       Gabriel rolled his eyes.  "I assure you, my needs are met."        

       Animal frowned. "How?" he demanded testily.  "You're fucking neither slave nor woman nor man . . ."

       "Rose could tell you," Gabriel said tersely as he moved around Animal and began to pluck the berries.

       "Oh . . ." Animal said, his voice strained.  "Of course.  I thought . . ." 

       "Oh, for . . ." Gabriel said.  "I'm no more making love to Rose than I'm lusting after you."  Animal looked relieved, then confused again.  Gabriel continued, "I meant that she changes my sheets."

       When realization dawned on Animal he took a step away from Gabriel, dropping his basket with a thud.  "You touch yourself?" he said, horrorstruck.

       Gabriel nodded, trying to be grave.  "Fairly often, and quite well," he said.

       Animal took another step away from him, holding up his hands as if to ward Gabriel away.  "You shouldn't . . .  You'll go blind."

       Gabriel held up his own hands, his palms facing in. "Look," he said, "No hair on my knuckles, either." 

       Animal shook his head animatedly.  "It's wrong, I tell you," he said.  "If you don't want to be with a human, find a slave to service you.  What you're doing is revolting."  Indeed, Animal looked as though he might be ill.  "I can't bear to think of it."

       "Then don't," Gabriel advised.  He continued to pick the berries.  But then his hand stilled.   "Are slaves forbidden from pleasuring themselves?" he asked.

       "Of course!" Animal said.  "How could we control them if . . . " He stopped, suspicious.  "What are you planning?" he demanded.

       Gabriel ignored his question and continued to harvest berries.  Animal slowly added berries to his own basket.  When their hands accidently touched as they both reached for the same bunch of berries, Animal jumped back.  Gabriel sighed.  He said, "Animal, as a healer, I promise you that what you've been taught, it's not true--no more than . . . so many other things you believe here. Please, trust me that I'm fine?"  he asked.  When Animal didn't respond Gabriel looked over to him.  "And I promise that if I'm not, I'll reconsider your fine, plump . . ."

       "Okay, okay," Animal cut him off, shuddering. "I get it.  You're fine."

       When Gabriel's basket was full and Animal's much less than full, the two men started back through the kitchen gardens.  Gabriel carried his basket easily; Animal lugged his.  Before they reached the road, Animal set his basket down and massaged his shoulder with his opposite hand.

       "Um," he began. Gabriel looked over with raised eyebrows.  "I know customs are different in Harmony, no slaves and all that, but over there do you . . ."  Gabriel waited in silence, neither encouraging or discouraging Animal.  "I mean . . . you do have sex there, right?  You're not a . . ." and his voice dropped to a whisper, "a virgin?"

       Gabriel choked out a laugh.  "No," he said, and added, "although no doubt I lack your breadth of experience."        

       Animal pondered this.  "Then no doubt you make up for it in depth?" he asked, as he picked up his basket and led Gabriel across the road.

       

       Gabriel shrugged.  "I was with the same woman for a couple of years.  We thought about getting joined, not long ago." 

       "Why didn't you?" Animal asked.

       Gabriel sighed.  "When Katie proposed, it didn't feel right. My father told me he knew he should join with my mother when he realized that he wanted to share with her his dark side -- the things in the depths of his soul that made him ashamed."

       Animal thought about this.  "Did you think she couldn't have handled your darkness?"

       Gabriel shook his head.  "She could have handled it," he said.  "She was great."  He trailed off.

       "What then?" Animal asked.  They had reached the steps to the mansion and started to climb them.

       Gabriel said, "I realized I didn't love her enough to  . . .. The thought of doing that work with her . . . it just made me tired."

       "And then you volunteered to come here," Animal said.

       Gabriel nodded, and laughed self-deprecatingly.  "A journey to escape my darkness to a place where darkness is inescapable."

       "That's not . . ." Animal started to say.  But he shrugged, and held the door to the mansion open to Gabriel.

Chapter 25:  Pleasures        

       The bulk of Mistress Dominique's effort in her training center went to teaching young slaves how to cook. It was a difficult task.  When one has never seen cooking more complicated than heating gruel over a fire, every skill from breaking eggs to basting meat is foreign. When one cannot read and is rarely allowed to taste, each recipe must be memorized individually. 

       Mistress Dominique also taught housework, of course, and deportment.  Most of her slaves' experience with humans was limited to the field masters and mistresses and to those who had broken them in in the factory.  Neither group could be relied upon to impart the behavior that would  allow a slave to thrive, or even to serve, within the mansion.  Mistress Dominique therefore taught the slaves what they needed to know, such as when they should look a human in the eye, the crotch, or the foot; how to make it known what they needed -- sex, rest, or gruel -- without provoking their  humans into denying it or punishing them; and how to participate in a conversation if their human desired it.

       There were lessons in sex as well, but mostly Mistress Dominique let the slaves teach that art to each other.  Generally in the late evenings and early mornings they were allowed to do as they pleased, and Mistress Dominique knew full well that there was nothing they would please to do more than fuck each other. 

       Which is not to say that Mistress Dominique did not enjoy her own slaves.  The one she chose most often was Taejon, a golden skinned, brown-eyed dick with a slow smile Mariah found herself staring at. 

       Mariah did not want to repeat her mistake during her first days at the factory, when she had not realized that Shinelle was Master Jonas's pet, and part of the mindgame.  She spoke little, focused on avoiding punishment, and observed everyone.  She took note of who spoke to who, who Mistress Dominique praised or punished, who shirked on their work and who seemed to put in full effort even if their mistress would take no note of it.  And she watched Taejon, of the slow smile. 

       On her fifth night, Taejon watched her right back.  Each time Mariah glanced his way he was glancing hers.  Finally he left the group he had been chatting with and sauntered up to her. 

       "All you have to do is ask," he said.

       Mariah looked at him blankly, startled. 

       Taejon came closer.  "To make love to you," he said. 

       "What?"  Mariah said.  "What's that?

       Taejon threw back his head and laughed, but not loudly enough to draw attention.  He made a circle with his left thumb and fingers and put his right forefinger through its center.  "When slaves fuck out of free choice," he said, "we call it making love."

       "Why?" said Mariah, mystified.

       It was Taejon's turn to look startled.  "I don't know," he said.  "I guess because it's lovely."  He reached up and touched Mariah's hair where it reached her shoulder.  "It would be with me."

       "I'm still sore," Mariah blurted, feeling stupid and clumsy.  "From the saw horse." 

       "I can work with that," Taejon said softly.

       Mariah looked at him warily, but found herself blushing.  This brought out Taejon's smile, again.  He twirled a strand of Mariah's hair on his finger, then tugged on it gently so that Mariah tilted her head.  "Like this," Taejon said, and he leaned forward and fluttered his tongue against the side of her throat, where her pulse beat.  It was a tiny touch, but Mariah felt it in her depths.

       Taejon stopped, released Mariah's hair, and took a step back to give her some space.  "That's what I'd do to you, if you asked me to," he said. 

       Mariah imagined his tongue fluttering against her soreness.  She involuntarily moved towards him. "Okay," she said, which was the best she could manage. She found herself shaking.

       Taejon's smile widened.  He picked up a sleeping mat and sheet, and led her by the hand over to a kitchen area.  "I like privacy," he explained when she hesitated.  Mariah let herself be led, walking stiffly so that Taejon would not notice her wobbly knees.

       He arranged their bed in the center of the U shape of the kitchen.  He lay himself down on it and propped himself up on one elbow, looking up at Mariah and waiting for her.  Mariah took a deep breath.  Taejon raised his eyebrows and patted the sheet next to him, looking hopeful and sweet and longing all at once.  Mariah laughed a little and lay down next to him. She mirrored him, propping herself up on her elbow.  Then she was motionless, except for the pounding of her heart.

       "Where does it hurt?" Taejon asked her softly. 

       At first Mariah didn't know what he meant. Her heart hurt, had hurt for so long. But then she remembered -- Taejon was not here to love her soul, but her body.  She blinked away the stinging in her eyes. "My shoulders, a little," she said.  "My cunt, a lot." 

       "So not here," Taejon said, and he scooted down on the bedding until his mouth was opposite Mariah's breasts.  Before he touched them, he said, "This is what I'm going to do down below, soon."  He pushed Mariah onto her back and began to lick the underside of her left breast, below her nipple, gently, slowly, using only his tongue. He circled around her nipple, never touching it, then did the same to her right breast. 

       "You can touch me, if you want," Taejon said, as he went back to her left breast. 

       "Sorry," Mariah said, embarrassed.  It was as if she had forgotten all her training.  She circled her arms around Taejon, pushing against the strength of his back.  She moved her hands down to his buttocks, and just as she grabbed him there he began to lick her nipple.

       "Oh," Mariah breathed, and pushed her fingers slowly into his crack.  Taejon licked her other nipple. 

       Taejon moved himself up her body.  "Remember, I'm going to do this below soon," he said, and he began to lick her lips, slowly, gently.  When Mariah tried to add pressure, he leaned back.  "When I do this to your cunt, to your clit," he said, "it will only be my gentle tongue."  And he began to lick her mouth again, this time the inside of her lips.  He was looking into Mariah's eyes and she could sense his smile.

       Mariah's pulse raced and her cunt gushed, which reawoke the bruises there and the pain.  She could feel Taejon's erection against her thigh.  It made her smile, which made Taejon pull back. 

       Mariah slipped out from under Taejon and turned so that she could put her mouth on Taejon's penis.  She took him in.

       But he pulled back again.  "No," he said, his voice husky.  "Don't deep throat me."

       Mariah looked up. "I told you, I'm sore," she said.  "It will hurt if you go inside me."        

       Taejon smiled his slow smile, although he was panting slightly.  "You can give me a blow job, if you want," he said.  "But no deep throat."

       "It's the same thing," Mariah said, annoyed.

       "No," Taejon said, and he was half laughing at her.  "When you deep throat me, what do you focus on?"

       "Relaxing my throat," Mariah said.  Master Jonas had taught her this, over and over again.

       Taejon nodded.  "I want you to focus on pleasure -- yours and mine."

       Mariah flushed, embarrassed by her own ignorance.  But Taejon put his hand over hers.  "No one comes out of the factory knowing this," he said. "We all have to be taught."  He guided Mariah's hand to the base of his penis.  "Hold me here," he said, tightening his own hand around hers.  "And if you want, you can put your mouth on me.  But not so deep that it makes you uncomfortable."

       Taejon had become soft.  Mariah cupped him and rubbed him gently. She leaned forward and experimentally twirled her tongue around him.  He jolted and groaned.  Again, the feeling of pleasure deep inside Mariah's core, outweighing the pain. 

       Without letting go of him, Mariah straddled Taejon, her knees on either side of his chest, facing down.  He hardened within her grasp, and she put her mouth over him, enjoying -- loving -- being able to move her mouth up and down on him as she chose.

       And then he pulled her knees back, and she felt his tongue on her.  It was a gentle fluttering, just as he had licked her neck, her breasts, her mouth.  The sensation was in her slit, at the entrance to her vagina, and back again. 

       She stroked and sucked Taejon as he licked her, his hands curled around her legs.  Mariah felt sparks in the back of her eyelids.  She sucked on him harder.  The sensation was divine.

       And then he was licking her clit, so gently that there was no pain despite her bruises, and so slowly that she thought that she would explode. She grasped his cock with her hand and her mouth as if it was grounding her to this world.  He half-grunted, half-groaned, and Mariah could feel the vibrations from his sound.  Then she did explode, and he didn't stop.  Once, twice, three times, until she had to pull up or the sensation would be too much.  At this slight movement Taejon lifted his head, and with a groan and a push of his hips he came as well.   

       After, they rested against each other.  Mariah asked him drowsily, "So that's making love?" and he smiled his slow smile. 

       ***

       Rose sat cross-legged on the floor, a large mortar on her lap, crushing with a pestle the berries Animal had brought home. Mariah stood, one hand lightly on the back of an armchair, doing a stretch Gabriel had taught her. 

       Gabriel had emptied his medicine bag onto the table and was sorting packets, noting which needed replenishing. He sighed heavily.   Rose glanced over at him.  Mariah gave no indication that she had heard.

       Gabriel sighed again, louder, almost ostentatiously.  Mariah and Rose glanced at each other.  "Can I help you with something, Master?" Rose asked.

       Gabriel gave an obvious double take, as if surprised that Rose had spoken.  "Oh, what? No . . ." He tugged at his hair.  "I was just thinking about a girl I knew back home, and hoping that she was okay." 

       Mariah and Rose looked at each other again, even more confused.  "Was she sick, Master?" Rose asked.

       Gabriel shook his head.  "No, no, not at all," he said.  "She was just always in trouble.  Like Mariah," he said, carefully looking only at Rose.  "Hates rules.  A born rebel." 

       The door opened with a bang and Animal stomped in, sweating, carrying a large ceramic jug.  "Rose," he said, "I need you to start . . ."  Seeing what she was doing, he stopped, said, "Oh," and placed the jug on the floor near her.  "See that you don't spill," he said.  "That stuff stains."

       "Yes, Master," Rose said, smiling slightly. 

       Gabriel continued as if Animal had not interrupted him.  "Her name is  . . ." he paused, still looking only at Rose.  "Makayla," he said. 

       He went back to sorting, seemingly lost in thought.  Animal went into the bathroom and began running water for a shower.  Rose took the bait at last.  "Why are you worried about her, Master?" she asked.

       "Well . . ." Gabriel said, "I guess I'm not worried about her exactly."  Rose looked to Mariah, who was staring fixedly at the floor as she raised one elbow over her head and tugged at it with her other hand.  "Do you ever have a daydream that's so intense that it seems real?"

       Rose nodded, puzzled.  "Yes, I . . ."

       But Gabriel interrupted her.  "I was thinking, if Makayla were here, if she were a slave, what would she do?" 

       Mariah looked at Gabriel at last, but Gabriel continued to focus only on Rose.  "I mean, if her whole goal were to rebel . . ."

       Neither Rose nor Mariah said anything, but both were now staring at Gabriel.  He looked down at the packets in front of him, speaking softly now as if to himself.  "I suppose she could run away like Mariah, but let's assume she got caught."  Mariah looked away as she reached both arms above her head and stretched tall.  Gabriel continued as if he had not noticed. although he flushed slightly.  "And let's say, like Mariah, she survived.  She's nervous now.  She might be looking for an opportunity to run away again . . ."  Mariah laced her fingers behind her back, and Gabriel continued, "but in the meantime she's stuck.  She wants to rebel but she doesn't want to get caught, or punished."  Gabriel asked Rose, "What would she do?"

       Rose looked down, pale, troubled.  "I don't know, Master," she said, and her voice trembled.

       But Gabriel pressed on.  "You must have some idea.  You've surely known slaves like this, looking for opportunities.  Would she sneak food?" 

       Rose said low and urgently, "I don't know, Master." She swiped her eye with the back of her wrist, which made her splash some berry juice on the rug.  "Oh," she cried, struggling to her feet.

       But Mariah said, "I'll get you a cloth, Rose."  When she returned a moment later from the kitchen with a damp rag, she said to Gabriel, tightly, "She would do whatever she could without getting caught."

       Animal came out of the bathroom, his hair wet, a towel wrapped around his waist, and began to cross to his bedroom.

       "But what would she do?" Gabriel said.  "Remember, I'm an outlander.  I don't know your rules.  What's the worst thing a slave who wanted to quietly rebel could do?"

       Animal stopped.  He looked from Gabriel, uselessly moving his packets around, to Mariah, seething, to Rose, crying.  He said, coldly, shortly, furiously, "She would pleasure herself."  He turned to Rose.  "I need you in the bedroom."  When Rose started to move the mortar and pestle to one side, he said, "Leave them.  I need you now."  Rose followed Animal across the living area and into his bedroom, where he closed the door firmly behind them.

       Mariah was frozen in place, staring at Gabriel.  Gabriel continued randomly moving his packets around, not meeting Mariah's eye.  He continued, as if Animal and Rose had not left the room,  "That makes sense.  Of course, she'd have to be smart about it.  Find a time when she wouldn't get caught.  If she had a room to herself, she could do it late at night or early in the morning.  She would have to make sure she could take a shower right afterwards, and that her sheets wouldn't give her away.  Maybe she'd lay a towel down."  Gabriel looked at Mariah at last.  "Don't you think?" he said. Mariah looked at him, slackjawed, and then nodded once, quickly.  Gabriel turned away so that Mariah would not see his smile.

Chapter 26:  Choosing

       The next morning Mistress Celia, Mistress Dominique's daughter, ordered Mariah to the food exchange with a group of other new arrivals to the training center.  By the time she returned in the early afternoon, Taejon was in the center's courtyard, assigned to yardwork. 

       That evening Mistress Dominique took Taejon home with her.  Mariah felt a pang, not so much at his going -- she had known that Taejon was Mistress' Dominique's favorite -- but that he did so without a glance her way.

       The following day was much the same, but that night Mistress Dominique left alone.  It took Mariah a few minutes to work up her courage.  Finally she walked over to where Taejon was leaning against a counter, talking and laughing with seven or eight slaves.  She stood quietly, unsure of herself, until Taejon glanced over at her.  Then she took a deep breath and said as boldly as she could muster, "You said all I had to do was ask."

       When Taejon looked confused, and his friends stared, amused, Mariah had the sinking feeling she had made a stupid mistake. "To . . . to make love," she muttered.  Then she saw that Taejon's hand was intertwined with a slavegirl whose name Mariah had not yet learned.  Her face hot, Mariah started to back away. "I'm sorry, I didn't . . ."  Someone tittered.

       Taejon disentangled his hand and followed her.  "It's okay," he said.  "There's always room for one more."  He smiled his slow smile. "Do you know Angela?" 

       "No!"  Mariah said, still walking away.  "That's not what I . . ."  She turned away. "Maybe some other time," she muttered.  "I didn't . . ."

       Taejon looped his hand around her elbow.  "Don't be embarrassed," he said, his voice intimate so that no one could overhear.  "We'll have our time again, alone if that's how you like it."  He waited until Mariah nodded.  "But in the meantime," he continued, indicating with his head the many slaves in the room, "you should enjoy yourself.  There won't be many times in your life when you can make love with whoever you want.  I know, I've been in the mansion . . . "  He shuddered.  "Take advantage of it."

       "Okay," Mariah said, unconvincingly.

       Taejon smiled his slow smile as he released her and turned away.  "We'll be together again," he repeated, over his shoulder.  Mariah didn't know whether he meant it or not.  But how she hoped so. 

       ***

       Gabriel was having breakfast in Animal's suite the next morning when Mariah slipped in through the patio door, her hair damp. She ladled herself some gruel from the pot in the kitchen, humming softly.  As she sat down, Rose said to her, "You seem cheerful this morning."  Mariah colored slightly, but didn't contradict her.

       Animal stood up abruptly, his breakfast half uneaten.  "Come, Rose," he said curtly.  "I don't want to be late."

       Rose looked at him, bewildered, but stood as precipitously as he and followed him as he stalked out the door.  Gabriel merely smiled benignly at Mariah as she ate with an appetite that was rare for her.  When she finished, he said, "I was wondering if you would be willing to help me."

       Mariah looked at him warily, but not as warily as usual.  She said, "It is my privilege to serve you, Master." 

       "Uh huh," Gabriel said. "Anyway, I have a problem in my clinic."  Mariah said nothing, but did not scowl either.  Gabriel pressed ahead.  "When slaves are brought to me, they're afraid.  I spend more time trying to get them to tell me what hurts than I do examining or treating them."

       Mariah shrugged.  "They don't know how to play your mindgame, Master," she said.

       Gabriel nodded.  "I want you to tell them that I mean them no harm."  When Mariah continued to merely stare at him he laughed ruefully.  "I'm not asking you to lie," he said.  "I'm sure there's something you could tell them that would convince them that . . . " he trailed off as Mariah remained carefully expressionless.  He sighed, but then said carefully,  "You'd be alone with them, sometimes. You can say whatever you want to them, then."

       After a moment, Mariah nodded.  "It is my privilege to serve you, master." Gabriel rolled his eyes.  

       ***

       Mariah did not follow Taejon's suggestion that night, but the next day she found herself looking speculatively at her fellow slaves in the training center.  Although a couple, like Taejon, had lived in the mansion, most had come straight from the factory.  However, almost all had been in the training center  for weeks or months longer than Mariah.  As she looked from one to another she wondered what it would be like to be with them -- to "make love."

 

       That evening she approached a tall, thin slave with sandy blond hair and a shy manner.  Like her, he was relatively new to the center.  Mariah enjoyed feeling her way with him.  But she enjoyed just as much knowing that the next night -- even the next morning, or later that night -- she could be with someone else, someone she chose and who chose her, experimenting, learning, actually enjoying herself.

       ***

       Gabriel led Mariah into his clinic, which was made up of three rooms.  A waiting area, with a mismatched collection of chairs lining the walls, opened into the room where Gabriel met with his patients.  Both rooms also had a door to a third room, which Gabriel used for storing his medicines.

       As soon as Gabriel had finished giving Mariah the brief tour, the door to the waiting area opened. A human woman, short, middle-aged, cradled her left wrist in her right  hand. Gabriel invited her into the office, and Mariah, unsure what she was supposed to do, followed.  Gabriel asked the woman what had happened and then gingerly examined her swollen thumb.  He numbed it and then lanced it, carefully explaining each step to the woman as he did so.  As pus drooled out of the woman' thumb Mariah refused to look away, although her stomach clenched. 

       After Gabriel cleaned and bandaged the wound, he turned the woman's hand over and touched the vein in her wrist.  "If that turns red, you get someone to find me, no matter what."  The woman nodded, and Gabriel said, "Promise?"  He would not let go until the woman said, "Yes, yes, I promise." 

       Gabriel gave her instructions and medicine and sent her on her way.  He rinsed the metal bowl that had caught the pus, put it in a bucket with a tight lid, and then meticulously cleaned the area and his hands. Mariah wondered if she was supposed to offer to help, but of course did not.  

       By the time Gabriel opened the door to the waiting area again, several people had come in.  Gabriel looked around the room, scanning it for anyone in need of urgent attention. Seeing no one, he asked, "Who was here first?" as he looked at a list on a chalkboard on the wall. 

       A dark haired man, a little younger than Gabriel, raised his hand.  "Over here," he said.  He was using as a footstool the back of a slavegirl on her hands and knees in front of him. 

       Gabriel frowned at the man. "You know my rules, Charles.  That's not allowed in here."  

       "I'm not torturing her," Charles protested.  "I'm treating her good.  I brought her here to see you, didn't I?  She's sick or something." 

       Gabriel just looked at him until he shrugged and took his feet off the slave.  She remained motionless, staring at the floor.  "I'll see her next," Gabriel said.

       Charles stood up, but Gabriel raised his hand.  "I'll see her alone," he said.

       "Why?" Charles protested.  "She sick, I told you that.  She can't do anything for you, and she's got a bracelet on."

       Gabriel regarded him calmly.  "I'll see her alone so I can diagnose her without interference.  If you want me to help her, tell her to stand up and come with me."

       Charles shrugged.  "Go on, Guckel.  Do as he says."

       The slave stood up quickly, coughing a little as she did.  Mariah could see that her face was pasty white.  Gabriel started to reach his hand out to her, but he stopped, and simply walked back into his office.  Guckel followed him, and Mariah after her.

       The slave was short and squat. Mariah wondered at that -- why was she allowed to eat so much? 

       "Please, sit down," Gabriel said to her, indicating the same bench where the mistress with the infected thumb had sat.  Wordlessly Guckel obeyed him, coughing slightly again.  Gabriel riveted his attention to her at the sound, and she quickly suppressed it, ending in a wheeze.

       "How can I help you?" Gabriel asked her, his voice kind.  Guckel did not answer, apparently unaware that Gabriel was speaking to her.  Mariah snorted, but suppressed the sound as quickly as Guckel had suppressed her cough.

       Gabriel tried again.  "Charles says you're sick," he said.  "Is that right?"

       Guckel stared at the ground.  "My master is always right, my lord," she said, the words ending with a wheeze.

       Gabriel nodded, smiling faintly.  "Is it your stomach that hurts?" he asked.

       "What?" Guckel asked, surprised.  "No, my lord.  I mean . . ." she stopped in confusion, "Only if it pleases you." 

       "Ah," said Gabriel.  "Your throat then?"

       "Only if it pleases you, my lord," Guckel repeated.

       "Does your head ache?" asked Gabriel.

       "Only if it pleases . . . ," Guckel began, but her words were lost in a wheeze.   

       "I just had a woman in here with a sore thumb.  Is that it with you?" Gabriel said.

       Guckel stared at Gabriel in open amazement.  Even Mariah could tell that Guckel was not breathing right.  What mindgame was Gabriel playing?  Then she remembered, not long after she had woken up after the torment, when Gabriel had cured her arm. He had done something similar then, pretending not to know what was wrong when he had known all along.  But why?

       Guckel looked down, staring at the floor now.  When Gabriel remained silent, she muttered, "My lord, it hurts when I breathe."  And she coughed again.

       Gabriel nodded.  He reached for his stethoscope and put it on.  He took a step toward Guckel but stopped a couple of feet away.  "I'd like to listen to your lungs, if you'll let me," he said. 

       "I am yours to command, my lord," Guckel said.

       "You too?" said Gabriel, with an amused smile at Mariah.  She scowled back at him, and continued to scowl as Gabriel examined Guckel much as he had examined Mariah, when she had first awoken after the torment.  His soft tone was the same.  His gentleness was the same.  His intense concentration was the same. 

       Mariah's stomach clenched, as it had when Gabriel had lanced the mistress's thumb earlier. The mindgame again, invading her.  She was nothing special to Gabriel.  She had not even realized that she had thought she was.  She was merely someone to cure, just like Guckel. But he couldn't cure her stupidity. 

 

       "You have bronchitis," Gabriel was telling Guckel.  "Very treatable in someone young and healthy."  He squeezed Guckel's hand as he went to the storage room, and Mariah scowled at the slavegirl. 

       Nevertheless, when Gabriel had closed the door behind him, Guckel asked Mariah, "Will you tell me . . . Is this a mindgame?"

       "Yes!" Mariah snarled.  But when Guckel's face fell, Mariah amended, her voice bitter, "Oh, he'll make you better, if he says he can.  But after . . . "  She took a deep breath until her ribs announced their limit.

       "I don't care what happens after," Guckel said.  "I just want to be able to breathe."  She began to cough again.

       Gabriel came back in, two medicine bottles in his hand.  "Charles has promised that he will follow my instructions," he said to Guckel.  "Do you think he will?"

       Guckel said, scandalized, "He is my master, my lord."

       Gabriel sighed, and then shrugged.  "Very well," he said.  "I'll explain to both of you what you need to do."  He opened the door to the waiting room and called Charles in.  Mariah's self-recrimination rang in her head -- "I'm a stupid, stupid fool!" -- but over it she heard Gabriel's explanation of the doses of the mullein tincture, and how to turn the peppermint into vapor.  As he walked them to the door, Gabriel said to Guckel, "You should be feeling better by the day after tomorrow. If you don't, come back."  Charles gave no indication that he heard, but he allowed Guckel to walk upright out the door.

       Gabriel smiled briefly at Mariah before he called his next patient.  "That was a relief," he confided to her.  "I thought at first she had asthma."  Mariah scowled, shrugged, and looked away.  "Asthma is a chronic condition," Gabriel continued, as if he believed Mariah were interested.  "It can be controlled but not cured."

       Mariah's mood continued to darken over the course of the morning, as Gabriel addressed whatever ailments were brought to him, always with kindness, whether to human or slave.  Mariah felt as if she were in a cave, surrounded by dark rock, trapped. If slaves attempted to speak with her she looked at them coldly and refused to respond. If humans took notice of her she fell to her knees and stared at their feet.  If she saw Gabriel's puzzled, hurt looks she gave no sign. She was nothing to him and he was nothing to her. 

Chapter 27:  Fresh air

       Mistress Celia examined the kitchen area where Mariah had spent the afternoon cooking.  She looked at the bottoms of pots and pans, and took a toothbrush to the seam of the sink.  Finding no fault, she said to Mariah, "You are dismissed."

       "Thank you, Mistress," said Mariah, focusing on not rushing away in her eagerness.  She had made plans to be with Emerson that night.  It would be her first time going back to someone she had been with before.  Knowing him a little, she grew warm thinking about what it would be like to explore him more deeply.

       Mariah was among the last to be dismissed that night. She went to join the slaves congregating on the other side of the center, eating gruel, sipping warm water, before they would split off into pairs or groups of three or four. 

       Emerson was sitting on a wooden bench against the wall, in the thick of the crowd.  He smiled at her.  As she was making her way toward him, she saw suddenly that Taejon was sitting next to him, and hesitated.

       But Taejon grinned at her.  "You better go, Emerson," he teased, loud enough for everyone to hear.  "Here comes Mariah, and you know she can't wait to try out some new position on you."

       "Or I could be like you," Mariah said tartly and just as loudly, "always looking for new people so they'll never figure out you only know one position." 

       Her heart hammered and her face turned red when she realized what she had said, but around her the room exploded in laughter, including Taejon's. "She busted you!" someone called out, chortling.  

       Mariah sat on the other side of Emerson, their thighs and arms touching.  She didn't much listen to the mock insults and laughter flying back and forth.  She felt odd, jumpy and calm at the same time.  With a start, she realized the feeling was happiness.  For the first time since long before she left the farm, she belonged. 

***

       At last the waiting room was empty.  Gabriel gave Mariah one of the two egg sandwiches that Rose had packed.  Since Mariah refused to look at him, she did not see his tentative smile as he handed it to her.

       Gabriel did not try to speak with her while they ate, and made no comment when she threw most of her sandwich into the trash which he had just emptied.  After he swept up and washed his hands for the last time, he said, "I've a visit to make, and I'd appreciate your company."

       Mariah said nothing but followed him out the door he held open for her.  He led her through a series of corridors, until at last he stopped at an inner courtyard suite and knocked. 

       A mistress came to the door.  Mariah refused to register her surprise that a human would open her own door. She was an older woman, her hair salt and pepper, her shoulders slouched.

       "How are you, Anne?" Gabriel asked quietly. 

       She sighed.  "He's tired today," she said. 

       Gabriel nodded.  "He'll have good days and bad," he said. Mistress Anne took no notice of Mariah as she followed Gabriel into the living area.  On the couch a slave lay listlessly.  He tried to rise up when Gabriel sat on a footstool beside the couch, but Gabriel put a firm hand on his shoulder and he lay back down.  Mariah could see that he did not move easily. 

       "How do you feel today, Lenny?" Gabriel asked him.

       Lenny responded, "Fine, my lord.  I think I'm getting better."   

       Gabriel looked at Mariah, then, and  she heard his voice in her head as if he had spoken aloud, "There's nothing I can do." 

       Taking Lenny's wrist, Gabriel checked his pulse, talking with him at the same time, softly, reassuringly. Mariah didn't listen to what they said. For some reason she felt clumsy in front of the ill slave, as if she did not know what to do with her own arms.  Mistress Anne seemed to be in the same state of mind, aimlessly picking up and putting down knickknacks on a nearby shelf.   

       Gabriel continued to examine Lenny until the slave's eyes fluttered closed.  Still Gabriel stayed with him, breathing with him.  Only when Lenny was deeply asleep did Gabriel stand up, slowly, his breathing almost unchanged.  Gently he put his hand under Anne's elbow and steered her to the kitchen.  Mariah followed.  Gabriel was shaking his head.  Mistress Anne's eyes filled with tears, and Gabriel's did too.  To her dismay, so did Mariah's.

       "I don't know how much longer I can keep him," Mistress Anne said as she poured iced tea for herself and Gabriel, spilling a little. 

       "What do you mean?" Gabriel said. He had reached out for the glass but pulled back abruptly.

       Anne turned partially away, and shrugged.  "I'm already a laughingstock," she said.  "My friends tell me I'm crazy to live like this, to cater to him when he . . ."  She broke off.

       Gabriel stood up tall, cold, furious, masterful.  He waited until Mistress Anne turned back to him before he drawled, "You would send him off to die alone because you don't like what you're friends say about  you?"

       Anne took a step back.  "Not just my friends," she said.  "My son . . ."

       Gabriel shook his head.  "I misjudged you," he said, and his voice was disgusted.

       "You don't understand," Anne said.  "You're an outlander, you can't know . . ."

       "What I know," Gabriel interrupted, "Is what you told me.  That he served you well for as long as he could, until the cancer crippled him.  That he still tries to comfort you, as if you are the one who needs it, not that poor young man who is going to die soon -- and you will send him away  to . . . to . . . I don't even know what, but that his last days will be lonely at best, and probably miserable and painful."  He turned to go.  "You know my rules.  I can't help you any more."

       Gabriel walked towards the kitchen door, but Mistress Anne called, "Wait!"  Gabriel turned back to her.  "How much longer does he have?"

       Gabriel shrugged.  "Not long, I think," he said coldly.  "Weeks, maybe, not months." 

       Mistress Anne was gave a small cry.  "Please, help me," she said.  And Gabriel put his arms around her as she sobbed on his shoulder.  "I won't send him away, I could never."  And she continued to cry.  Gabriel said nothing, but Mariah could recognize that he was matching his breathing to Mistress Anne's until she calmed down.  Then she pulled away with a final sniff. 

       Gabriel took a bottle from his medicine bag. "This is palliative, nothing more," he said.  "Give him a teaspoonful if he complains of pain.  As often as he wants -- there's no reason to hold back now."

       Anne placed the bottle on the counter.  "Thank you," she said.  "You've done so much for both of us, I can't thank you enough."  Her voice shook.

       Gabriel's voice still had a hard edge to it.  "Thank me by keeping him comfortable," he said. 

       And suddenly Mariah understood.  Master Gabriel's kindness was a mindgame, there was no denying it.  He treated slaves as if they were special, when they weren't, not to him. 

       Mariah had told Guckel this morning she didn't know what happened after the cure, after the mindgame ended. 

       But Lenny wouldn't be cured.  He would die.  Neither Master Gabriel nor Lenny's mistress could torture him then.  For Lenny, Master Gabriel's kindness mindgame was just that -- kindness.  There would be no after. 

       And the mindgame had brought Lenny comfort, just as it had at times comforted her more than she would ever admit.  Gabriel had saved Lenny from torture, just as he had saved Mariah from death.  What did it mean?

***

       The next morning Mariah was assigned with two other slaves to go on their own to the food exchange.  It was Mariah's first time in the corridors of the mansion unaccompanied by a human.  As they passed a window she admired  the glint off the silver do not molest bracelet Mistress Celia had fastened on her wrist.  The bracelet, if she behaved with propriety, would likely protect her from unwanted attention. 

       It was Tabitha who suggested that they go outside rather than through the north wing of the mansion to get to the exchange.  Gino shook his head.  "If we get caught . . ." he said, his hands on his welted backside. 

       "We won't!" Tabitha said. "Not if we walk quickly."  Gino shook his head dubiously and Tabitha appealed to Mariah.  "You want to, don't you?"

       Mariah nodded her head, her heart pounding.  Gino sighed and rolled his eyes, but followed the other two out the door. 

       Outside.  The lawn, green and soft, intersected with carefully tended walkways.  Beyond it, the fields, where Mariah had grown up.  And beyond them . . . Mariah didn't care.  She took Tabitha's and Gino's hands and the three of them started to run, towards the food exchange where they were sent, but outside, breaking rules, laughing.

***

       Mariah was so lost in her thoughts that she did not notice when she and Gabriel exited the mansion.  The walkway pavement felt warm under her feet.  "My lord?" she asked tentatively.

       Gabriel blinked, coming back from where he had been deep in his own thoughts.  "Yes?" he said with an encouraging smile.

       "After Lenny dies . . ." she tried to formulate her thoughts.  "Is that all?"  When Gabriel just looked puzzled, she clarified, "Do you think there's another life, another mindgame, after this one?"  She blushed, embarrassed by how stupid she sounded.

       Gabriel pushed his finger through the hair on his forehead.  "I don't know," he said.  "I don't think it matters."

       "How can it not?" Mariah asked.  "I mean . . ."  But she didn't know what she meant.

       Gabriel led Mariah over to a bench swing under an oak tree.  "A lot of people who lived long ago thought it mattered," he said.  "Some believed in heaven -- a paradise where good people would go after they died, or people who believed the right things.  Some believed that people would be reborn as other people, or even animals, depending on how they acted in this life.  Some believed dead bodies would be brought back to life."

       He pushed the ground with his foot, making the swing move.  "The earth was populated, then, from one ocean to the next and on continents across the oceans, there were people everywhere.  And no matter what the people believed, they used the earth up, and they fought tremendous bloody battles against each other, sometimes because of what they believed, until there was hardly anyone left, billions of people died, devastation like you can't imagine."  Mariah listened, transfixed, as Gabriel continued, "And of those who were left, some people who believed and some who didn't became masters and some people who believed and some who didn't became slaves."

       He stood up, and gave his hand to Mariah to help her up.  "It doesn't matter what happens after we die. What matters is what we do while we're alive.  Do we help each other, and stand up for what's right?  Or do we . . ."  He pointed to a mistress across the yard, forcing a crying slave to walk into a wild rose patch, her skin torn by the thorns . . . "Do we act like that?" He started to walk again, and Mariah came with him. 

CHAPTER 28:  THINGS FALL APART

       That afternoon Mariah still basked in the high of the morning's small rebellion.  As she kneeled obediently, knees wide, butt on heels, hands palm up on her thighs, she focused on not glancing at Tabitha or Gino, who were kneeling on either side of her. She sucked in her cheeks, hot with pleasure, to keep from smiling.

       Mistress Dominique was punishing a new girl, Erennia.  Mariah had not been listening and did not know what her supposed crime was.  It didn't matter. 

       She was suddenly aware of a change in the air around her.  Mistress Dominique had left Erennia tied to a footstool and was scanning the other slaves. 

       Cold premonition, like so long ago in the fields, when Rolanda's mistress had laid eyes on Mariah.  Desperately she looked down, at Mistress Dominique's feet pacing back and forth in front of the group.  It did no good.

       When Mistress Dominique called her name she had no choice but to look up, and when ordered to do so she had no choice but to stand and approach.

       Mistress Dominique was placing a whip in her hand.  The carved wood of the handle was warm and damp from the human woman's grip.  For a split second Mariah did not react, but as she felt the handle's solidity she dropped it and took a step back.  She willed herself not to protect her body from the punishment that must surely follow.  But Mistress Dominique smiled at her.  "Is this your first time with a whip?" she asked.

       "Yes, Mistress," Mariah answered, her voice shaking, the joy of just a few moments ago obliterated. 

       "It's okay," Mistress Dominique said.  "Pick it up."  When Mariah again held the whip handle, Mistress Dominique said, "Feel it's power.  You know what the other end feels like.  This is where it begins, pain surging from your body through the instrument and into the prostrate slave waiting for it." 

       Mariah, sickened, concentrated on remaining expressionless, but Mistress Dominique seemed to be speaking more to herself than to her.  She moved behind Mariah, close, until her front was touching Mariah's back, much as when she had forced Mariah to orgasm at the Exchange.  She slid her palm down the outside of Mariah's arm, until she had engulfed the back of her hand.  Slowly she drew Mariah's hand up and back.  "Ready?" she breathed in Mariah's ear.

       "No!" Mariah said inside her head.  "Never!"  But out loud she said, "Yes, Mistress."

       "Watch the rebound," Mistress Dominique said.  "It's common to slash your own face when you're still learning."  Mariah wondered whether she could manage to hit Mistress Dominique, but dismissed the thought.  She hadn't the skill.

       And then Mistress Dominique was directing her arm back and forth, and the leather of the whip snaked, and its end snapped Erennia in the lower back, just above her buttock.  It left a small mark, maybe an inch long, and as Errenia grunted the thong came back, going wide of both Mariah and her mistress. 

       "Nicely done," Mistress Dominique said.  "Again!"  And again she directed Mariah's arm, forward and back, and the whip hit Errenia and Errenia groaned as the whip came back. 

       "You try it," Mistress Dominique said.  She stepped away from Mariah, far enough that she could not be hit by the backlash.  Mariah took a breath, tried to imitate what Mistress Dominique had done, and ended up hitting Errenia much harder, square across her buttocks.  Errenia screamed.  The whip came back and hit Mariah in the shoulder, cutting her.  "Try again," Mistress Dominique said.  "Watch your angle."

       Mariah tried again.  It was a sweet stroke, the end of the whip hitting Errenia in the crack between her spread legs, not hard enough to do any real damage but hard enough to make Errenia cry out, "Please!  Please!"  Mariah drew her arm back wide, to direct the whip away from her own body. 

       "Feel the power," Mistress Dominique said.  "Feed on her pain."

       The lash was still swaying.  Mariah looked over to Mistress Dominique, wondering if she was done.  "Go on, girl," she said.  "Beat her as she deserves."

       Mariah looked back at the spread figure in front of her.  She gritted her teeth as she raised her arm again.  "Not for my pleasure," she said to herself. She snapped the whip, trying to do it gently.  The lash hit Errenia midback.  Errenia shuddered but made no sound. 

       "Harder," Mistress Dominique said.  "Make her feel it.  Enjoy it."

       "Never for my pleasure," Mariah said again to herself, as she snapped the whip harder, hitting Errenia lower down, making her cry out. 

       "Again!" Mistress Dominique said.  Mariah whipped the girl over and over, each time telling herself, "Never for my pleasure." Each time, Mistress Dominique commanded her to continue. 

       Mariah gained some control of where the lash landed.  When Errenia was marked from her knees to neck, and Mariah's arm ached, Mistress Dominique said, "Enough." Gratefully Mariah lowered the whip.

       But Mistress Dominique was not done with her.  Once again she stood behind Mariah, snaked her arm around Mariah's middle, and put her fingers on her sex.  "You're practically dry," Mistress Dominique said, astonishment mixed with disapproval.

       "I . . ."  Mariah began, but there was nothing she could say.  Fear gripped her as she realized her miscalculation.

       Mistress Dominique pulled away from Mariah.  She pointed at Tabitha and Gino, sitting among the other slaves, and crooked her finger towards them. As they approached she said to Gino, "Untie her," indicating Errenia.  When he complied, Mistress Dominique said to Errenia, "Go," and waved vaguely toward kneeling slaves.  With a gulp of relief Errenia scurried to them. 

       Mistress Dominique had already turned back to the three slaves before her.  She squinted at Tabitha, deliberating.  "Untied, I think," she murmured mostly to herself.  She gestured Tabitha over to the footstool, still wet with Errenia's sweat.  "Make sure you keep your knees wider than the legs of the stool." 

       With one dark glance at Mariah, Tabitha did as she was bid, assuming the same position that Errenia had been in, but with no ropes to restrain her.

       Mariah still held the whip limply in her hand.  Mistress Dominique forcibly spun her into position behind Tabitha, and kicked her legs apart.  She pointed at Gino.  "Knees," she said.  Gio knelt before Mariah. 

       Mariah did not need to hear her mistress's words to know what she would say.  "You'll whip her until you orgasm."  She added, "Mind the backswing; they'll be no stopping just because you slice your partner's ear." 

       Gino had already seized Mariah's buttocks and pulled her closer, trying for a headstart to save Tabitha some misery.  He placed his tongue on Mariah's slit and his upper lip on top of her clit and began to suck.  Mariah was not prepared and involuntarily took a half step back.  Mistress Dominique smiled.  "Begin," she said.

       As Gino pulled her towards him again, Mariah raised her whip arm and twitched it.  The lash hit Tabitha midback.  "Harder," Mistress Dominique said, "unless you fancy the rest of the day on the sawhorse."  Mariah flicked the whip again, harder, without aim.  The lash crashed into Tabitha's left inner thigh.  Tabitha inched her legs together, only for an instant, but Mistress Dominique noticed.  "Move them again, and we'll finish this while you're wearing a buttplug coated with hot pepper oil."  Although Gino had pulled back for a moment, Mariah felt the tightness begin.

        She flicked the whip again, trying for an impact that was not so soft as to arouse Mistress Dominique's ire, and not so hard as to make Tabitha move her legs again.  As the blow landed Gino put his fingers in her crack, one of them resting on her asshole.  He tongued her in wide circles below her clit. But Mariah was nowhere near ready. 

       She flicked the whip again.  Tabitha cried out.  Gino moved his thumb down and gently penetrated her vagina with it, circling her clit with his tongue, not touching it.  The whip, again, and Tabitha's groan, and Gino's thumb moving up her slit.  The whip, again, and Tabitha's pain, and Gino's thumb just below her clit.  The whip, again, and Tabitha in a blur, and Gino using his tongue to push her clit onto the hardness of his thumb.

       It is not enough.  Mariah is panting, from Gino, from her exertion, from the confusion, but she is not ready yet.  "Aim for her crack," Mistress Dominique commands her, and Mariah does, and as the lash lands, Gino is pushing his finger into her ass, and now his thumb is in her cunt again, and he is pushing his finger in and out of her ass and his thumb in and out of her sex as he licks her clit.  Mariah whips Tabitha. Tabitha cries out, her body wriggles, struggling to keep her knees wide. Gino sweeps his tongue from the entrance to Mariah's vagina to just below her clit and stops. 

       Mariah whips Tabitha again.  Again the cry, the wriggle, the struggle, and Gino's tongue on her.  Again, and again.

       And then, every time the whip connects to Tabitha, Gino licks her clit.  On the backswing he pulls back.  She whips again, he licks her clit again.  Lightning behind her eyes, but only when the whip connects.  The whip, the tongue, the whip, the tongue.  She is close now.  She accidently flicks the whip harder, and Tabitha cries out louder.  Gino draws her clit into his mouth.  His tongue continues to circle.  Mariah hits Tabitha hard again, and Tabitha out again.  The whip, the cry, the tongue circling. 

       The crash is about to overtake Mariah.  The whip goes wild; it wraps around Tabitha to the side of her breast squished into the footstool, and Tabitha shrieks, and Mariah shrieks, and Gino fingers her ass and her cunt harder, deeper, and sucks her clit, and Mariah brings the whip down one more time and Tabitha cries out one more time, and Mariah is pushed over the edge, into Gino's mouth, spasming, and as she does she whips Tabitha again, again, and her cries are louder than Tabitha's.  And then she can barely hold up the whip, or herself.  Gino has pulled back, and Tabitha is quiet and still, bleeding where the whipmarks have crossed.  And Mistress Dominique says to them, "You are dismissed."  Gino helps Tabitha up.  Mariah staggers and no one catches her.