“The man just lost several thousand dollars worth of present to his new wife,” Robin had answered. “They were nice pieces, heirloom stuff. If they were mine, and they were missing, I’d be suspicious of everything that moved.”
In the end, Eve had tried to rescue the situation by suggesting that maybe she had been mistaken and the earrings had somehow gotten into her luggage. She would search when she got home, but now they had to catch their plane. She apologized and everyone sighed at her attempt to save face.
But now, this. Apparently saving face was not so acceptable any more.
“I’ve promised her that we will make another search,” Eric continued. “But this time, Jimmy and I will supervise. I have to ask you all again; did any of you leave your room the night that the earrings went missing?”
Carl at least had an alibi. He had been chained at the foot of his masters’ bed all night.
Three “No, masters” chorused back.
Eric pressed his lips together. “OK. Carl, you can get back to work. Robin and Jeff, you stay with me. We’re starting down here. Raul, you go upstairs with Jimmy. We’re not going to stop until every square on inch of this place is uncovered, if it takes all week!”
It didn’t take more than four hours. But it was four hours of removing seat cushions, patting down pillows, emptying and refilling closets, checking the pockets of all clothing, and going through boxes and bags in storage. It was four hours of removing every book on every shelf, and shaking every decorative pot or vase, and even digging into a potted plant or two.
Resentment seemed to grow in Eric, who was above the kind of petty labor going on. He was also fuming over the fact that his house had fallen under suspicion, and he let his displeasure show with curses and an occasional smack or kick when nothing turned up.
In the early afternoon, Jimmy came down the stairs, and called to his lover. “Eric, could you bring the slaves up here, please?”
Robin followed obediently, not even curious about what Jimmy wanted. The whole search seemed silly to her, a waste of time. No slave would jeopardize their position in the Marketplace with what amounted to petty theft.
Her stomach tightened as she saw that Jimmy was leading them all to the small room that was her work space. Raul was standing by the door, his head down and his hands folded behind his back.
Jimmy stepped through the door, and beckoned Eric to follow him. Robin crept up slowly, and stood just outside the door. When she heard Eric call her in, she didn’t know what she was going to see, but knew that it wasn’t going to be good.
Her desk had been cleared off, her calendar and pens and phone directory all on the floor next to the wall. In the middle of the desk, a small pool of water was still quivering. Two red flowers she had picked the day before were scattered at the edge of the puddle, their petals in crushed disarray.
In the middle of the puddle were two metallic things that glittered. Large metallic things with emeralds in them. The ceramic bud vase that usually sat on the shelf above her computer screen was standing on the desk corner.
Robin gazed down at the desk and then quickly back up into the faces of her owners. Jimmy was unreadable; Eric was livid. She opened her mouth to say something, anything, but Eric moved as fast as she’d ever seen and backhanded her across the face. It caught her off guard, and the force threw her to one side, hitting the doorframe, which she clung to, fighting to remain standing.
“You ungrateful little cunt,” the handsome man snarled, drawing his hand back again. “I’m going to kill you!”
“Master, please, I―ahh!”
Eric caught her with another slap, this one aimed too high to catch her cheek. It hit her on the side of the head and her head seemed to rebound off the wall. The double impact sent her spinning down, and she could feel a warm trickle coming from her mouth and leaking onto her cheek.
The other slaves backed away from her as Eric moved in to kick her viciously in the thigh. She cried out again and shrank down, pulling herself into a ball, even though her training had told her to never do that.
Jimmy had to finally pull Eric away. But it was only the beginning.
And Robin was never given a chance to say a single word.
* * * *
She couldn’t really feel her fingers any more. Which was perhaps a blessing. Everything else she felt was pain. Pure pain, divorced from any aspect of pleasure, and from any sense of security.
The cracking sound of another rod breaking was a momentary respite from the steady cutting and burning of the beating. It might take all of ten seconds to choose the next one, flex it, and begin again. But there was no part of her body that didn’t already pound and throb with intense agony. Even the soles of her feet had been cut, held aloft for terrifying and excruciating minutes of strain on her arms and wrists.
Eric had not forgotten the line that Chris really had put in his report―that canes and cane-like punishment tools were most effective on Robin because she feared them.
Jimmy and Eric had no canes lying around. But there was a collection of newly purchased garden stakes, still in their wire wrapping.
Eric had sent Jeff to go get them. Then, when Robin was gagged and bound in the corner downstairs, he tossed a bunch of them onto the floor beneath her and pushed one into Carl’s hands.
“Use it on her until it breaks,” he said. “Not just her ass. Everywhere.”
And the torment began. The acute bite of the rods was bad enough on her buttocks and thighs. It was hellish on her breasts and sides. It stung and burned and cut more times then she could count, and when Carl had broken the first rod, Raul was sent over to begin with the second. Carl’s face showed a struggle going on; Raul was as placid and efficient as he always was. Both were as merciless as Eric directed them to be.
Heat spread throughout her body, and after some immeasurable time, she could barely tell how often new stripes were added. She could see down the front of her body a mass of crisscrossed red lines, some of them with white edges, others with darker red middles. Every one throbbed and ached, until that was all she could feel.
She wished that she had the power to make herself pass out. In a moment of lucidity, she remembered the Victorian porn she had once collected, and the frequency of fainting spells when punishments got too harsh.
And then a rod would fall again and she would scream into the gag until finally even that stopped. Sweat poured down her face and body and slipped over welts and through cuts, and when she slumped into the bonds because her legs were just not capable of keeping her up any more, they let her hang.
This is not safe, another thought came, ludicrously. By the time they unfastened the cuffs, there was no place on her body that she could rest on comfortably. She was amazed to find the floor a little wet and sticky beneath her, and that the pounding in her bones and muscles was not nearly as bad as the million needles that seemed to be stinging the flesh of her hands.
And still, the worst had not happened.
Because then, after the gag was pulled out of her mouth in a torrent of pinkish spit, Eric looked at her from across the room and said to Raul, “Place a call to New York. Get me Parker.”
Robin had thought that there were no tears left in her. But at the sound of that command, and as Raul rose to go to the phone, unaware that she was moving her lips in a silent plea to stop him, to beg for a chance to explain, to beg for mercy, she broke and sobbed furiously.
Now she was finished, destroyed. And over something that she didn’t do.
That was when she finally passed out.
Chapter Twenty-One
She was trapped in a little steel box, with burning walls tight against her flesh on all sides. The air was musty and smelled of bitterness, like chemicals spilling over copper. She couldn’t see, it was too dark, and no one could get to her, could let her out before the sun burnt through the steel and melted it all against her body, running in rivulets, scorching her, going through her, until she screamed and screamed and r
an out of air and couldn’t breathe....
Flames touched her and she jerked awake. Instantly, the pain of her dream coalesced into the reality of her condition. She moaned, and something searing touched her again. This time, she realized that it wasn’t fire at all, but something cold.
She was lying on her side, and as she drew in one harsh breath, she practically inhaled a mouth full of dust. It didn’t make her dry mouth and throat any better. As she began to cough it out, she opened her eyes. Her right eye. Her left eye, still pressed against the surface she was laying on, was swollen. It only opened a slit, and that scared her as much as anything else.
“Hold still, there’s a lot to clean,” Carl said. She raised her head a little and looked at him. He was crouched down, next to her. She was on a wood plank floor―not in the house. Next to her head she could see the blue trim of a bowl, and the edges of a tray. There were washcloths stacked on the tray, and a brown bottle.
Carl touched her again and she hissed. “It’s only ice,” he said. “It’ll take the swelling down.”
“C-Carl.” She managed to form the sounds, and heard them inside her head, as though she had a cold. “I didn’t... I didn’t...”
Carl thrust a hand into the bowl and brought out a small piece of melting ice, which he held to her lips. “Here,” he said gruffly. “Suck on this. Don’t try to talk.”
It felt cool and good for a few seconds, and then it suddenly made her feel chilly. She held onto the slippery sliver, though, and tried to look around again.
Behind Carl was something silver and red, with a long black cord. It was the power mower.
She was on the floor of the damn tool shed, next to the garage.
They wouldn’t even let me sleep in the house. Just dumped me in an outdoor shed, to lie in the dust and the oil and the dirt. She started to cry again, and found that even that hurt. From the crown of her head to the soles of her feet, she was nothing but a mass of pain. And the only thing that was being done for her was ice for the welts and a bottle of peroxide, administered by another slave.
I want to go home, she thought, clenching her hands into fists. I don’t care anymore, I just want to go home, where I can have my own bed and sleep with whom I want to and never have to take this from someone who could just do it without any reason! She sobbed heavily, and each movement of her body seemed to awaken another aching itch. Finally, Carl had to go. She made no other attempt to talk to him, and he said nothing else to her.
Somehow, her exhaustion and despair overcame her aches and she slept again. It was a struggle, a twitching of consciousness that kept her wavering from a near dream state to painful wakefulness and then back again.
“You have to understand, Robin, that this is an experience that will make a mockery of everything you have ever believed in,” Chris was saying to her. Another lecture, this one after a grueling drill session in behavior and situational problem solving. “Liberty, justice, equality―these are all denied a slave. You will lose every right that you have been taught to believe belongs to you from birth, especially the right to pursue happiness. Your owners can do what they like to you for any reason, and your only alternative is to end the relationship, to quit and go on home. And the price for doing that is losing everything.”
“I understand,” she replied.
“No you don’t,” Chris said. He looked somber, and for one moment, a touch of sadness landed in his eyes. “But you will.”
I do, I do, Robin cried out, grabbing for his knee. I understand now, make it all go back, make it right, I understand now! But he dwindled, and then vanished, and his voice kept going, a Cheshire cat of a man, she thought. I am crazy at last, hearing people who are not here. Hearing things I heard a year and a half ago.
“... been here since?”
“Yes, sir.”
“There is a brown leather bag in my car. Fetch it, and bring me a wet towel and a comb.”
Damn, but it sounded like Chris.
Chris!
Robin struggled awake again, and groaned. Being in that half conscious state was far preferable to being fully aware. Now, in addition to the pain of her beating, she was stiff from lying on the hard floor for so long. She also felt dirty and was aware of her own smell. She opened her eyes, this time both of them, and saw a black engineer boot by her face. Tentatively, she reached for it, and felt the smooth leather under her fingers.
“Hello, Robin.”
Even as relief poured through her, shame followed, and Robin brought her hand up to her mouth and bit her own finger, feeling still more hot tears squeezing their way from her eyes. Chris Parker bent down next to her and put one hand on her shoulder, but suddenly she didn’t want him there. Didn’t want him to see her like this, to witness her humiliation in this fashion. But he was real, and didn’t vanish as conveniently as his phantom had. Instead, he put one hand under her other shoulder and began to lift. She made a sound of protest, but went with him, until she was sitting up, her back against a huge bag of birdseed. She tried to keep her eyes down, but couldn’t help glancing up into his face.
He looked different. He had allowed his beard to grow in at last, and although she liked smooth cheeks, it did suit him. He was wearing a white business shirt with the sleeves folded carefully up to his biceps, and she could swear that the flames that had been licking at her body were all over his arms as well. She blinked, and dust and tears made her vision a foggy haze. She tried to look up into his eyes, but they were hidden by sunglasses.
Raul appeared at the shed door with the items Chris had sent him for, and Chris briskly took them and made a dismissive gesture. “Tell your masters that I will be in contact.”
“Yes, sir.”
Chris looked toward Robin again and sighed. “All right, girl, let’s get you out of here.”
She kept silent as he wiped her down with the towel. In the brown bag was a pair of her jeans and a T-shirt, and a long sleeved blouse, plus her old sneakers. Chris also had a bottle of water and aspirin, which she took eagerly. The water tasted sweet and wonderful, and for a moment, almost seemed to banish the steady, throbbing pains that still wracked her body.
Getting dressed was a slow and irritating maneuver. She’d barely worn long pants since she had been sold. The sneakers felt strange, absurdly soft around her feet. But when Chris pulled her up, she was grateful for the softness.
He helped her out of the shed, taking her arm like any gentleman walking an injured lady. There was a gleaming Lincoln parked at the top of the drive, and he led her to the back seat and pushed her gently down, to lie on her side. She didn’t know how long it was until he returned to hop into the driver’s seat and take off, and she didn’t know where he was taking her. But the hum of the engine and the velvety softness of the seat beneath her cheek lulled her back to sleep.
Perhaps, she thought, as she drifted off, this is all still a dream.
* * * *
“I didn’t do it, sir,” Robin finally said. It was such a relief to get that line out at last! She winced as the doctor coated another cut, but really didn’t mind the sensation. Hell, after the actual beating and lying on a floor for a day and then some, these minor stings and prickles were almost pleasurable.
“That’s a problem,” Chris answered. He was sitting in a hard backed chair, taken from the desk in the outer room of the suite. Robin was lying on her stomach on the bed, towels underneath her, while the gentle doctor, who had already given her a shot and treated her black eye, was busy checking to make sure that her cuts were clean and healing normally. He had actually chuckled when he’d seen her.
“This is nothing,” he had said, waving a hand over her body. “Just a few nicks and scratches!”
“Good,” Chris had replied. “Then it shouldn’t take too much of your time.” About the only thing the doctor actually grumbled about was finding several splinters. After removing them, he had cursed owners who didn’t maintain proper equipment.
“Damn idiots. Didn’t their f
athers ever tell ’em, ‘right tool for the right job?’ What did they use, dowels? Tsk, tsk. And there’s such a good quality of rattan coming in these days, too. Not to mention all these plastics they’re always coming up with. And they’re so easy to keep clean!”
But after that, he fell silent and bent to the task, tsking once in a while. He was almost finished when Chris came in to sit down and look Robin in the eye. Now, he sighed and tapped one finger against his leg.
“Who did it then?” he asked.
“I don’t know!”
“Keep calm. Remember who you’re talking to here.” Robin nodded and cast her eyes down. “Now think. Who had access to the earrings? And why would they hide them in your office?”
Robin thought for a moment. “Almost anyone could have been in that room,” she finally said. “Probably, we all were at one time or another that weekend. But they had to disappear between midnight on Saturday and eight on Sunday morning, because Eve said that she’d seen them the night before.”
“Meaning?”
“That someone snuck into the guest room while they were asleep. It’s not that hard. The door wouldn’t have been locked, and we all know our way around those rooms in the dark.”
“I would suppose so.” Chris leaned back and looked over her shoulder. “Finished?”
“All done. I’m leaving some antibiotics, but the infection is very light, I wouldn’t worry. Nicks and scratches, that’s all. Ice to relieve the swelling on that shiner, and try not to do any hiking until the cuts on the feet heal. Take aspirin or something over the counter for the pain, unless she’s supposed to feel it. Otherwise, she’s ready to go back to work.” He took his gloves off with two snaps. “I send my bill....?”
“To them. Thank you for coming.” Chris saw the doctor out, leaving Robin to stew for a few minutes. When he came back, he took the same seat and looked at her expectantly.
The Slave Page 31