party. If it had been no dream, I supposed such a determination might have been easily made at that time, perhaps while I slept.
Then I stiffened, for one of the fellows was crouching beside me, on the left. I felt a metal anklet snapped about my ankle.
I had been ankleted.
“I know what you have in mind,” I said, “but you will never get me to the Middle East! You will never be able to sell me in a secret market!”
“You are not going to the Middle East,” said their leader. “And there will be nothing secret about the market in which you will be sold.”
“You are going to sell me?” I said. “Truly?”
“Your lineaments are not without interest,” said a fellow.
“That was clear from the film,” said another.
“Film?” I said.
“Taken at the party,” said a fellow.
“You look quite well in a camisk,” said a man.
“You know that word?” I said.
The fellow laughed.
“To be sure,” said another, “it was a rather generous camisk.”
I had been mortified, for I had been half naked. And I was dismayed to learn that some record of my humiliation, of my punishment, and, I supposed, of that of Eve and Jane, too, had apparently been made. I suspected Mrs. Rawlinson would not have been unaware of the filming. Perhaps she had arranged it, for a record of the party, which might later have been of interest to the guests. But how could these men have known of this, how could they have managed to see the film? Had it been stolen? Had it been given to them? Had it been sold to them?
“It may be a long time,” said another, “before you are again permitted a garment as concealing as a camisk.”
“You will never get me to the Middle East!” I said.
“You are not going to the Middle East,” said the leader. “You are going to Gor.”
“There is no such place!” I said. “There is no such place!”
I struggled.
I was aware of the metal on my left ankle, snugly enclosing it. I was aware of the ribbon twice encircling my throat, knotted there, a ribbon of white silk.
I was nude, and my hands were tied behind my back.
I was helpless.
“There is no such place!” I said. “There is no such place!”
I was then, from behind, gagged.
Two men then placed me on the rug, gently, and one crossed my ankles and another tied them together. I then lay on the rug, gagged, and bound, hand and foot.
“Put her in the van,” said the leader.
I was lifted and carried through the backdoor of the house, where a van was waiting. I was placed in the van, on the metal floor. The floor had some broad grooves. Such a feature, I supposed, was in the interests of cargo, affording a run-off for possible spillages, a higher, drier surface to protect against dampness, perhaps a less frictionated surface to facilitate the loading or unloading of boxes, crates, and such. It would not, of course, be a pleasant surface to lie on, as I would soon learn. One man climbed into the back of the van with me, and the doors were closed. Shortly thereafter the van left the driveway.
We had driven for perhaps two hours when I began to whimper. My body was sore, particularly given the recent roughness of the road, my jarring and jostling, and the hardness of the floor. In places on my body there were temporary marks, from the grooved flooring.
The man said nothing, but he removed his jacket, folded it, and placed it under my head and shoulders.
I looked at him, tears in my eyes, gratefully.
Then I lay back.
Had he been waiting for me to whimper, I wondered. Had he been waiting for me to beg?
I knew I had begged.
I did not know if this had pleased him or not.
But I had begged.
It was an hour later, and night must have fallen. The man snapped on the dome light in the rear of the van.
I lay before him.
He turned away, and, from a box to his left, he drew forth a thermos, and a small sack. I watched him, as he unwrapped a sandwich, and began to eat.
After a bit, he looked at me.
“Are you hungry?” he said.
I struggled to sit up. I nodded, piteously. I was cold, thirsty, famished, and bound.
“We are in the country,” he said. “It would do you no good to scream.”
I nodded.
“On your knees,” he said. “Approach me.”
I managed to kneel, and make my way to him.
“Turn about,” he said.
I struggled about, and he untied the gag, and drew it away.
“Face me,” he said.
I did so.
He poured some fluid from the thermos into the cup of the thermos, and held it to my lips, and I drank.
It was warm tea.
“That is enough,” he said, withdrawing the cup.
“Would you like to eat?” he asked.
Again I nodded, desperately.
He began to finish his sandwich, but before doing so, tore off a portion, and held it to me.
I extended my head to him, to take the bit of sandwich, but he drew it back, a little, so that I must reach farther forward to take it. Then, when I had done so, he permitted me to reach it, and take it.
He had well impressed on me that he was in control of my food.
He finished the sandwich, and I had finished the bit permitted to me.
“You may lick my hand,” he said.
I licked his wrist, and the back of his hand.
In this way, I expressed my gratitude, that I had been given drink, and had been fed.
“May I speak?” I asked.
I had said this naturally, understandably enough, for I was afraid. Yet, almost as soon as I had said the words, I wondered why I had used those particular words, in that particular way. Surely they seemed appropriate; but they also seemed familiar. It was as though I had heard them before, or read them somewhere. Then it occurred to me that I had read them, or something rather like them, in those books which Mrs. Rawlinson had discovered in my room, which she had seized, to my consternation and shame.
“No,” he said.
“Shall I replace the gag?” he asked.
I shook my head, negatively.
He had said we were in the country, and that it would do no good to scream. Certainly that seemed plausible, given the roughness of the road. And I hated the gag. How helpless a woman feels when speech is denied her! Too, he was a powerful man, and I did not doubt that even the suspicion that I might cry out might earn me a blow which might render me unconscious. Too, I saw those large hands, and did not doubt but what they might, if he wished, snap my neck.
I would not cry out.
