John Norman

by Time Slave

  “I hate him,” said Brenda Hamilton to herself.

  She struggled, but could not free herself. The members of the group looked at her, curiously.

  Then she hung again, quietly, wrists lashed apart over her head, helplessly.

  Horror came into her eyes. She saw another face among the others. But it was not a human face. She cried out in fear, seeing Ugly Girl.

  The members of the group turned to see at what she might have cried out.

  Ugly Girl frightened at seeing the eyes upon her, turned away, her head low on her shoulders, her dark hair like strings, her rounded shoulders cowering, and tried to shuffle away. She was naked and squat, thick legged, long armed. No ornaments had been given to her. Brenda Hamilton saw, startled, that her ankles were fastened together, about a foot apart, by a knotted rawhide strap. One of the children, the leader of the children, a blond girl, comely, one developing, one perhaps some fourteen years of age, one Brenda Hamilton would later learn was Butterfly, reached down to. the strap on the ankles of the shambling girl and jerked back on it, throwing the girl to the dirt, and then she leaped over her and began to strike her, repeatedly, with her open hands. Four other children then, two boys and two girls, began to follow her lead. Ugly Girl rolled on the ground, covering her head and face with her arms, howling, and then, breaking away, followed, crept whimpering between the huts.

  Brenda Hamilton felt sick. Never had she seen anything as repulsive as Ugly Girl.

  She was horrid.

  She found herself pleased that the strange girl, so horrifyingly ugly was not of the group.

  She would avoid her, continually. She made her sick.

  She heard again the screams of Ugly Girl, now from between the huts. Then she saw the homely fellow, with the large tooth, still followed by children, go to drive the other children away from the squat, hideous creature. She heard him cry out angrily at the children, and heard their shrieks and protests; he must, too, judging from the cries, have struck one or two of them. Soon, the blond girl, and the other children, came back to the rack. The fellow with the tooth turned away, and went to the other side of the camp. He seemed angry. The two children still followed him.

  Spear turned away from the rack. He nodded with his head toward the other set of poles, from which hung strips of meat. “The meat is almost dry,” he said to Stone, and the others. “Tomorrow we will go for salt and flint, and then return to the shelters.”

  The men nodded.

  Brenda Hamilton saw that the younger man, who resembled the leader, could not take his eyes from her body. She hung, wrists apart, frightened, scrutinized. Then she saw a blond girl, lovely, bare-breasted, with a necklace of shells and claws, hold him by the arm, trying to pull him away. He thrust her to one side. The girl looked at Brenda Hamilton with hatred. It was Flower. Then she approached the young man and knelt before him, and with her lips, began to touch her way upward along the interior of his thigh, timidly, and then she thrust her head up, under his skins. He laughed and seized her, and dragged her from the group back between the huts, pulling her by the wrist, she, laughing, pretending to resist.

  Flower, boldly, bad won his attention away from the new slave.

  Brenda Hamilton shuddered.

  “Old Woman,” said Spear.

  Brenda Hamilton saw a hag emerge from the others. She was partly bent, white-haired. She wore skins covering her upper body as well as her lower body. There was much wrinkled skin about her eyes. The eyes, however, were sharp and bright, like those of a small bird.

  She was the only one among the women who did not seem to fear the men, or show them deference.

  Spear pointed to Brenda Hamilton.

  “What do you think of Tree’s catch?” he asked. “Can she bring children to the men?”

  The old woman’s hands were on Brenda Hamilton’s hips. Brenda felt her thumbs, pressing into her flesh, feeling her body, measuring it. “Yes,” said Old Woman, “she has good hips, wide hips. She can bring to the Men many children.”

  “Good,” said Spear. His own woman, his first woman, Short Leg, had had only one child, and that had been delivered stillborn. Life in these times was precarious, and a good breeder, one who could bring many children to the group, was highly prized. Without such breeders groups died.

  Brenda Hamilton felt the old woman’s hands on her breasts.

  She looked away, miserable.

  Spear looked at Old Woman.

  “When the time comes,” said Old Woman, “she will not need Nurse.”

  Spear nodded. That was good. Some of the women in the group did not have enough milk, and there was already much work for Nurse.

  It was important for a female, if possible, to give suck to her own young.

  “It is too bad,” said Spear, “that she does not kick well.”

  The old woman turned to Brenda Hamilton. “Is it true, my pretty,” she asked, in the language of the Men, “that you do not kick well?”

  Brenda Hamilton looked at her blankly. Her shoulder hurt, where she had been thrown to the dirt by Tree. And, too, her wrists hurt from the thongs. She could scarcely move her fingers.

  Old Woman repeated her question in the language of the Bear People, which she had never forgotten. Many years ago she had been purchased from the Bear People by Drawer, who had become Old Man, whom Spear had killed when he had gone blind. Old Woman had been fond of Old Man.

  “You must learn to kick well, my pretty,” cooed the old woman, kindly, to Brenda Hamilton.

  Brenda Hamilton struggled, trying to escape the old woman’s hands. But she could not do so. With her left arm, the old woman held her still, and, with one finger, not entering her, very gently, on the side, tested her.

  Brenda Hamilton hung miserably on the pole.

  “Well?” asked Spear.

  Old Woman removed her hands from Brenda Hamilton, and turned to face Spear.

  “Her body is alive,” said Old Woman. “I do not understand why she would not kick well.”

  Then she turned again to Brenda Hamilton, puzzled.

  Brenda Hamilton looked at the other women standing about Never had she seen such women. They seemed vital, sensual, alive, half animal. Their femaleness seemed one with their person, as much as a smell or a pigmentation. How different the men and women seemed, the men hard, strong, tall, the women so much smaller, so lusciously curved, so vital, so shamelessly female.

  These, of course, were women from before the agricultural revolution, before a man became bound to a strip of soil, and became obsessed with the ownership of his land, the authenticity of his paternity, the reliability and legitimacy of inheritances. These were times before a man owned, privately, his land, and his children and his women. The economic system was not yet such that, before effective birth-control procedures, it was desirable to inculcate frigidity in females, a property useful in the perpetuation and support of patriarchal monogamy. The cultural conditioning processes, abetted by religions, whose role was to support the institutions of the time, had not yet been turned to this end.

  Brenda Hamilton, looking on the women of the Men, realized that they had not been taught to be ashamed of their bodies and needs.

  They are like animals, she thought. Brenda Hamilton, though enlightened, though informed, though historically aware, was yet a creature of her own times and conditionings, of a world in which her attitudes and feelings had, without her knowing it, been shaped by centuries of misery,. un – happiness and mental disease, thought to be essential in guaranteeing societal stability, thought to be the only alternative to chaos, the jungle and terror. Fear and superstition, often by men whose gifts for life were imperfect or defective, and hated or feared life, poured like corroding acids into the minds of the young, had been a culture’s guarantee that men would fear to leave their fields, that they would keep the laws, that they would pay the priests and the kings, that the hunters would not return.

  But the women, and the men, on whom Brenda Hamilton looked, had not
felt this oppressive weight.

  They were free of it, simply free of it.

  They still owned the world, and the mountains, and hunted the animals, and went where Spear decided they would go.

  They were as free as leopards and lions, as once men were, as once men might be again, among new continents, among new mountains, once more being first, now among the stars.

  “Her body is alive,” said Old Woman, looking up into the face of Brenda Hamilton. “I do not understand why she would not kick well.”

  Brenda Hamilton looked away from her.

  “You must learn to kick well, my pretty,” said the old woman to her. “You must learn to kick well for the men.”

  Brenda Hamilton turned to her, miserable, looking down into her face.

  The old woman looked up at her, and cackled. “You will learn to kick well, my pretty,” she said, “if you would eat.”

  Then she turned away.

  Spear looked at her. Then he said to the men, “Let us go to the men’s hut.”

  The men turned and went between the huts, leaving the women and children at the rack.

  Spear was the last of the men to leave.

  Before he left he faced Brenda Hamilton. “You are a slave,” he told her. She looked at him, blankly. Then he said to the women and children about, “Teach her that she is a slave.” Then he, too, walked away, following the men, between the huts.

  The women and children pressed closely about her, poking at her, smelling her, feeling her body.

  “Please untie me,” begged Brenda Hamilton.

  One of the women struck her, sharply, across the mouth.

  Brenda Hamilton hung, wrists apart, hands now numb, from the pole, her feet some six inches from the ground.

  She tasted blood in her mouth, where the blow had dashed her lower lip against her teeth.

  She closed her eyes.

  Suddenly, from behind her, she heard the hiss of a switch and she cried out in pain, the supple, peeled branch unexpectedly, deeply, lashing into the small of her back, on the left side; she twisted in the thongs, agonized, to look behind her, and another switch, swiftly, cut across her belly; she cried out in misery, writhing in the thongs; first on one side and then the other, and in front and back, and the length of her body, the women and the children, chanting, circling her, leaping in and out, struck her.

  Brenda Hamilton saw the ugly girl, the stupid, horrid one, crouching, naked between the huts, watching her.

  Then the switch fell again, and again.

  Then she saw, limping from between the huts, the woman with the scar, who had screamed something before, and had later, after the sticks had been thrown, left the group. She demanded a switch from one of the other women. It was immediately given to her. And then the others fell back. Short Leg looked at Brenda Hamilton. Then she lashed her with the switch, making her cry out with pain. She lashed her methodically and well, with care and strength, and then Brenda Hamilton, broken, blubbering, wept in the thongs. “Please stop,” she wept. “Don’t hurt me,” she wept. The older woman with the scar, Short Leg, held her face to hers, by the hair. Brenda Hamilton could not meet her eyes, but looked away.

  She knew that she feared this woman terribly, that she was dominant over her.

  Short Leg, angrily, threw away the switch, and limped away.

  Hamilton saw another woman pick up the switch, a darkhaired woman, one of the two women who had left with the hunter who had captured her. It was Antelope. Behind her was the shorter woman, blond, thick-ankled, who had accompanied them, Cloud.

  Antelope strode to her and struck her five times, and then gave the switch to Cloud, who, too, lashed her five times. Antelope smiled at her over her shoulder, as she walked away. She had the hip swing of a woman who has been muchly pleasured by a man.

  A little later the young, blond girl, who had left with the other hunter, Flower, strolled to the rack, and she, too, smiling, lashed Brenda Hamilton.

  “I don’t want him!” wept Brenda Hamilton. “Don’t beat me! He’s yours! He’s yours!”

  Flower threw away the switch and strolled from the rack.

  Then the old woman was among the other women and the children.

  She pushed them away, and they, weary now, from striking, and taunting and chanting, left the pole.

  Brenda Hamilton hung, beaten, alone. Her body was a welter of lash marks.

  To her left hung the deer, hind feet apart, tied upside down, with its cut throat.

  The sun passed the noon meridian and none paid more attention to her. She watched the shadows of the poles then creep across the ground.

  Her hair was half across her face. In the early afternoon she fell unconscious.

  She awakened in the late afternoon, when the shadows were long.

  She saw most of the men sitting cross-legged, watching her. Among them, though, were not the hunter who had captured her, nor the small man who had thrown the sticks. Too, the small, quick man, Fox, was not among them. He was to her left, beginning to skin the deer. He began at the bound foot to his left, cutting around the leg with a small stone knife, and then made a deep vertical incision down the animal’s body. In a few minutes he had freed the skin from the meat.

  The men watched impassively.

  When he had jerked the skin free and thrown it to one side, to the grass, he looked at Brenda Hamilton, who regarded him, numbly.

  Then, to her horror, with his knife he reached up to her bound wrist, that on his left and laid the knife against it.

  “No!” she screamed. “No! No!”

  The quick man, with a wide grin, took the knife away, and the other men, all of them with but one exception, the heavy-jawed, dour man she would learn was Stone, roared with laughter. And across even his face there was the trace of a smile.

  She blushed, so completely had she been fooled. She was still shuddering, when she was lifted in the thongs, untied from the pole, and carried to a place on the grass.

  She was sat on the grass, naked, the men about her.

  The one who was their leader handed her a broken gourd, filled with water.

  Gratefully she drank.

  She was then handed small bits of meat, dried. She ate them.

  She saw some of the women now-untying the skinned deer from the pole. Others were preparing a large, rectangular fire in a clearing between the huts. Poles would be set up; it would be gutted and roasted. Another woman had picked up the skin, and was taking it away with her.

  Her body felt miserable, from the beating. She could scarcely move her hands; she could not feel her fingers. Her wrists bore deep, circular red marks, where the thongs had bitten into them.

  She was given more water, more pieces of meat. She drank, and ate.

  The men sat about, watching her.

  She felt less frightened with them than with the women.

  She knew that, to them, she was an object of curiosity, of interest, of pleasure. To the women she sensed she was only another woman, a rival, competitor. Moreover, she had recognized, with a woman’s swiftness and awareness, that she was among the most delicious of the females in the camp. She had seen only one she had felt was her superior in beauty, the young, blond girl, whom she would learn was Flower. It was not without reason that the new slave feared the other women in the camp. She hoped the men would protect her from them. She sat now among them, naked, shielded from the women. She could see that they were pleased that she had been brought to the camp, that they were pleased that she was theirs.

  She felt some strength coming back to her body. She looked about herself, at the men.

  Suddenly she realized that they would have nothing to do until the women prepared the meat.

  She leaped to her feet, but one of the men, the dour-faced, heavy fellow, Stone, seized her ankle, and she was hurled to the grass, again among them.

  Spear pointed to a hide spread on the grass, that she should take her place upon it.

  The men were watching her.

&n
bsp; “Please, no,” she said.

  Spear pointed again to the hide on the grass.

  She crept to it, and sat upon it.

  “No,” she whispered, “please, no.”

  She saw them inching toward her. She tried to move back on the hide.

  With a sudden cry, as of animals, they leaped upon her, she screaming, and thrust her shoulders back to the hide. She felt her ankles being jerked apart, widely, the hands and mouths of them eager and hot all about her body, holding her, caressing her, licking at her, biting at her, pinioning her.

  The first to claim her was Spear, for he was the leader.

  Brenda Hamilton thrust her fingers in her mouth. They were still sore from the blow of Old Woman’s stick. She did not know whether or not they might be broken. She had tried to take a piece of meat. Screaming, striking her again and again with the stick, beating her on the back, Old Woman had driven her away from the roasting meat. Then Hamilton had fallen, stumbling, her ankles fastened, one to the other, with about a foot of play, like those of Ugly Girl, with rawhide. Spear had done this, when the men had finished with her, then turning her loose. Hamilton had fallen to the ground, helpless under the blows of Old Woman’s stick. And then two other women, too, attacked her, striking at her with their hands, kicking her with their feet. Even a child hit her. Hamilton had knelt down, head down, her hands over her head, crying out in misery. Then Old Woman had said something, and the blows had stopped. And Hamilton had crawled, abused, from the light of the fire. She had learned that she could not take meat. She was a female. But she had seen Old Woman take meat, and the large, heavy-breasted woman, too, take meat. She had learned now that they were special, and that she was not. She was only another female. Old Woman, in the cooking, was assisted by two other women, but, like the other women of the Men, they, too, were not permitted to feed themselves. The meat, like the women, belonged to the hunters. It was theirs to dispense. The only exception to this practice was that taken, usually in the course of the cooking, by Old Woman and Nurse. Old Woman did much what she wanted, and few interfered. Nurse, too, was privileged. Without Nurse some of the young might die. Nurse and Old Woman were not thought of by the Men, perhaps strangely, as being of the women. They were women, but somehow not the same, not in the same way of the women.