The Warrior Enchained

4

“Take it easy, Terry,” a voice came through the thinning fog, supposedly calm and soothing but laced with enough worry and fretting to make my head throb. I motioned at the voice behind the fog, trying to wave it away; the gesture didn’t work, but at least the worry eased up. “Tammad, she’s coming to,” the voice persisted. “You can tell that doctor he can take his time now.”

“I have told him how close he stands to the end of his life,” a second voice growled, farther away but suddenly coming closer. “Should he not appear in the next moment, be will learn that my words were not idle.”

The first voice, Garth’s voice, muttered something that was half agreement, half deep-throated snarl, and I opened my eyes to see the two of them standing over raze, staring down at where I lay on the bed. Tammad was furious with what was mostly self-directed anger, and Garth was puzzled.

“You two are giving me a headache,” I muttered, trying to smooth the pain creases out of my forehead. “If you can’t turn that off, you’ll have to leave.”

“Turn what off?” Garth demanded, increasing instead of decreasing the puzzlement. “And what’s going on here? What happened to you?”

“Nothing,” I muttered, starting to sit up, and then I winced at the soreness of my ribs. Nothing was cracked or even close to being seriously damaged, but Garth saw me flinch and whirled angrily on Tammad.

“What have, you done to her now?” he demanded. “Another mere nothing to be overlooked?”

“It would be useless to deny the guilt,” the big barbarian answered, his voice calm but his mind in a turmoil. “I have once again done the opposite of what I wished to do with this woman, though the why of it is beyond me. I have never before had such difficulty with wendaa.”

“What’s going on here?” another voice demanded before Garth could say anything. The voice belonged to a portly man of middle years, who was breathing hard from the pace he had been moving at when he came in. He wore the uniform of a ship’s officer, but I had never seen him before. The two men turned to him, and Garth looked him up and down.

“Well, I’m glad to see you’ve finally made it,” he said grimly. “Do you think you might examine this woman before going back to your collection of dip-reals?”

The man flushed, guilt flaring in his mind, and I just couldn’t take any more. I lay back on the bed again and tried to see what I could do about blocking them all out. Tammad was angry at himself for hurting me, Garth was angry because things weren’t going quite the way he had expected, and the man, who was undoubtedly the ship’s doctor they had sent for, was smarting under Garth’s accusation. So-called dip-reals were made only for men, supplying highly erotic fantasy females for men who couldn’t or didn’t care to pair up with real women. Accusing a man of using dip-reals was an insult, but Garth had very little to worry about. The portly man couldn’t have stood up to the Kabra even if he’d wanted to.

The doctor stood glaring at Garth for a minute, then turned away from him and walked over to the bed I was on. His anger grew clearer the closer he came, pushing at the thin shield I had somehow formed in my mind. I say I had formed the shield, but that isn’t entirely accurate. In some manner the shield had formed itself, needing only my lack of active resistance to grow immediately where it was needed. As the doctor’s anger touched it it thickened, taking up the burden of his emotions without passing it on to me. I knew I could release it any time I cared to, but I would also have enjoyed knowing where it came from. I had never been able to do that before, and had never beard of anyone else able to do it.

“What’s bothering you, young lady?” the man asked, his expression working to be concerned. It felt strange not to be experiencing his thoughts directly, but my mind needed time to come back from the buffeting it had taken.

“Nothing’s bothering me,” I told him. “All I need is to be left alone for a while.”

“That isn’t true,” Garth insisted, coming to stand closer to the bed. “When she tried to move a minute ago, I could see she was in pain. Pain from what I don’t know, but there was definitely pain.”

“The fault was mine,” Tammad put in, coming to stand next to Garth. His tone and expression were calm, but I doubted that his mind matched them. “I embraced the woman, forgetting how slight she is. I may have done her serious harm.”

“Well, there’s only one way to find out,” the doctor sighed, turning his bead toward the other men. “If you two will step outside, I’ll examine her.”

Garth nodded and began to turn away, but it was immediately evident that Tammad had no intentions of going with him.

“I will remain during this examination,” the barbarian announced, his light eyes openly mistrusting the doctor’s intentions. “The woman is mine, and I do not care to leave her with strangers.”

“Then I won’t examine her,” the doctor shrugged, seemingly unimpressed with his antagonist. “I won’t make any woman take her clothes off in front of an audience.”

“The man’s right, Tammad,” Garth put in, coming back to where he’d been. “You don’t want to embarrass Terry, do you? If you insist on staying when she has to undress, she’ll be embarrassed.”

“I see no need for the removal of her clothing,” the barbarian maintained, folding his arms across his chest as be continued to look at the doctor. “You may see to her as she is.”

“Is that so?” the doctor came back, his belligerence evident in the thrust of his fleshy chin. “That’s not the way I conduct an examination. If you know so much about it, do it yourself.”

“Come on, Tammad, let the man do his job,” Garth urged, moving closer to put a hand on the barbarian’s shoulder. “If we stayed, we’d just be in the way. This way we’ll find out what’s wrong with Terry, and we’ll still be right outside the door. You have my word he won’t do anything you’d find unacceptable.”

“You are willing to give your word on the matter?” Tammad asked, turning to look at the Kabra. When Garth nodded he nodded. as well, and added, “I know little of the doings of the men of your worlds. Perhaps, in this way, I shall learn the sooner. Very well.”

He turned then and led the way out of the cabin, Garth following along and talking to him in low tones. When the door closed behind them, the doctor turned back to me.

“About time,” he muttered, his eyes on me. “If you’ll remove that blouse-like garment, we’ll be able to begin.”

“There’s nothing to begin,” I told him, moving myself carefully into a sitting position. The shield made me feel as if I were wrapped in layer after layer of transparent cloth, but it didn’t stop me from noticing that the soreness in my ribs was already fading. In another few minutes it should be gone completely. The major damage had been done to my mind, and even that wasn’t as bad as it could have been. The headache was already gone, and I had to smother the urge to peek out from behind the shield.

“Now what’s the problem?” the doctor demanded in exasperation, the frown on his round face making him look severe. “Did you people get me down here just to give me a hard time?”

“I wasn’t the one who called you,” I pointed out. “I told you earlier I wasn’t interested in your services. If you’re still here it isn’t my fault.”

“Those two oversized men out there are the reason I’m still here,” he hissed, pointing back toward the closed door. “Do you know what that blond one said to me?”

“I can imagine.” I nodded. “If you have to examine someone, examine them. You don’t have my permission to tend me.

“I give up!” the doctor exploded, throwing his hands up and turning toward the door. When he got there he threw the door open and said to the two surprised faces he saw, “There’s nothing I can do. The woman refuses to allow me to examine her, so there’s nothing I can do. May I return to my sick bay now?”

“Just a minute.” Garth frowned, coming back into the cabin past the doctor. Tammad followed him, also wearing a frown, and the two of them stopped near the bed to look down at me. “Terry, this is ridiculous,” Garth said. “You have to let the doctor examine you.”

“No, I don’t,” I answered with a headshake. “Even if there was something wrong with me, which there isn’t, I still have the right to refuse.”

“You have no such right,” Tammad said, interrupting whatever Garth had been about to say. His eyes were hard and displeased, and I could feel the shield thickening to keep his thoughts from me. “You will allow this man called doctor to see to you, for it is my will that you do so.”

“That’s already been settled,” I told him, calmer than I thought I’d be. “You and I are nothing to each other, not even friends. Your will means as little to me as mine means to you. As a Prime of the Centran Amalgamation, I demand that you leave me in peace until this trip is over. Once it is, this transport can take me wherever I have to go.”

I folded my legs under me, watching the barbarian’s face, peripherally aware of the way Garth and the doctor stirred uneasily to either side of him. He had unconsciously straightened himself to his full height, and his arms folded across his chest as his head nodded slowly.

“It is as I have always believed,” he said, his musing tone apparently directed toward the other two men. “Speak to her, each man of your worlds tells me, convince her gently to do as you wish. Do not demand that she obey you, petition her agreement. So have I attempted to do, and now do you see the results before you. My words, clumsily formulated, gave a meaning to my thoughts which I had not intended. My forebearance, shown to the woman against my better judgment, gave her the belief that she might defy me in safety. All these things might easily have been avoided, had I simply commanded her obedience. Is there reason to continue with such foolishness?”

“Tammad, it isn’t foolishness,” Garth tried, running an anxious hand through his hair. “You can’t deny the fact that the woman’s a Prime. You just have to be a little more patient.” Then his eyes turned to me and they were just about pleading. “Terry, you’ve got to understand that this isn’t a situation where you can afford to be stubborn. After the doctor examines you, you, Tammad and I will sit down and try to straighten out the rest of this mess. It’s the only thing we can do.”

“Why, because you say so?” I countered. “First I do everything I’m told to do, and then as a reward I get to listen to why things will continue that way? Sorry, Garth, but I’ve already stated my position. I suggest the rest of you try adapting to me for a change.”

“Terry, please . . .” Garth started, but Tammad’s hand on his shoulder stopped the words.

“It is easier to do battle with the wind and the rain,” he told a Garth who was beginning to grow red-faced. “It is not possible to reason with one who refuses to hear you. Do not ask the woman. Tell her.”

“Damned if I won’t,” Garth muttered, straightening the way Tammad had. “Terry, you’ve had every chance and then some, but you refuse to be reasonable; now we’ll do it without resorting to reason. Doctor, I want this woman examined. Now.”

“Are you out of your mind?” the doctor gasped, paling at the order while I bristled. “You said yourself she’s a Prime. Do you expect me to disregard the desires of a Prime? If we were on Central, you’d be mobbed for the suggestion!”

“And yet, we do not now stand upon your world of Central,” Tammad put in when Garth hesitated. “That we do not do so is a great relief to me, for had the woman been truly hurt, her care would be left to her discretion alone. You have been told to see to her. Do so.”

This time it was the doctor’s turn to hesitate, and Tammad wasn’t pleased. He moved closer to the man, towering over him, his broad, tanned, nearly bare body a striking contrast to the statement of confinement of the doctor’s uniform. The smaller man looked up at him, licking his lips nervously, feeling the entire weight of those hard, light blue eyes.

“I am in command here,” the barbarian said very softly, so softly the doctor shivered. “Do not doubt my word on this. See to the woman.”

“B—b—but her clothing,” the man stammered, pale and likely to stay so. “How can I—With you and that other man here? She won’t—”

“Terril, remove your clothing,” the barbarian directed, interrupting the limping flow of words from the doctor by moving those light eyes to me. The relative calm I’d felt the entire time was touched with shock that he’d dare suggest such a thing, and then the shield was gone, disappearing in the flare of outrage that exploded from my mind. The doctor’s thoughts trembled with deep, uncontrollable fear, Garth’s mind quivered with indecision; only Tammad’s thoughts were as calm and decisive as ever. My fists clenched against the frothing madness that tried to claim me, and I found it almost impossible to speak coherently.

“You dare tell me I—In front of—After what you—Never! I swear it! Never?”

I was trying to verbalize every thought and feeling I had, suddenly rushing at me from every corner of my mind. I was well nigh insane from the frustration of it, from everything that had happened, from everything that was about to happen. I scrabbled about on the bed, pulled the caldin out of my way and got to my knees, then threw myself at the barbarian, beating at him with my fists as I screamed incoherently. I felt the shock in his mind even as his arms came up in reflex protection, keeping me from battering at his face as I so wanted to do. Garth and the doctor were also shocked, so shocked that they stood rooted in place; only Tammad reacted with the reflexes of a cat, catching my arms and forcing me back. I struggled and kicked to keep from being pinned to the bed, but then Garth was helping the barbarian, holding my legs down, and the doctor was at a wall, inserting his key, pressing buttons, removing what a slot in the wall spat out at him. I screamed again, trying to get free, and then a touch of ice at the base of my neck ended it all.

Deep quiet all around, peace and silence and, best of all, no other minds to impose themselves on mine. I took a deep breath and stirred on the bed, then opened my eyes to see that I was still in the same cabin I’d been in earlier. I put a hand to my head and rubbed fretfully, trying to keep a frown from forming. I remembered everything that had happened before the doctor knocked me out; the one thing I couldn’t understand was why it had happened.

I sat up on the wrinkled linen, closed my eyes and put my fingers over them, then carefully examined my mind. The screaming rage I’d felt was gone, flushed out and away like dirty water down a drain. The rage had come so suddenly that I’d been entirely unprepared for it, finding myself buried under the avalanche even before I knew it was on the way. There was no denying how deeply upset I’d been, but a few minutes of thought passed before another, more probable reason for the blow-up occurred to me. I’d been using that shield, the one that had protected me from everyone else’s emotions; could it be it had protected me too far? Not having to receive other people’s emotions may have encouraged my own to run wild, if for no other purpose than to fill the void that felt so unnatural when I was awakened. I took a shuddering breath, feeling my heart beat faster at thought of the shield. I’d used it so casually, without once considering possible consequences, without considering careful experimentation before actual use. Anything could have happened, anything at all, and the thought frightened me more than anything about my talent ever had. It was something entirely new, and it would be a long time before I tried using it again.

“You have returned to yourself,” came Tammad’s voice, and I pulled my fingers away from my eyes to see him standing in the now-opened doorway. His mind was under its usual strong control, and I’d been so deeply immersed in my own concerns that I wouldn’t have known he was there if he hadn’t spoken. “How do you fare?”

“Oh, I’m just fine and dandy,” I answered, staring straight at hire. “What’s the matter, did you stop by because you were afraid I’d be unable to strip for the rest of your men? I know how unfair it is, asking me to do it just for two of them. The rest would undoubtedly be insulted.”

“I see you have indeed returned to yourself.” He nodded, coming farther into the cabin and closing the door behind him. “Once again you feel yourself unjustly treated.”

“Why, whatever would make you say that?” I wondered aloud, expecting the flash of anger I felt in him. “Just because you’ve turned my entire life into an insane asylum? Just because you feel you have the right to direct every breath I take? Just because one minute everything is over between us, and the next we’re right back where we started? Don’t be silly.”

I laughed lightly, knowing it would annoy him, but the annoyance he felt never reached his face. He stood there tall and magnificent, broad and strong and handsome and more desirable than any man of all the worlds of the Amalgamation, his mind showing nothing but agreement with what I’d said.

“You have spoken the words I, myself, meant to say,” he put in at once, then folded those massive arms. “Perhaps with more sharpness than I care for, yet the words are not untrue. The fault for this—insanity—as you call, it is indeed mine, for I committed the folly of believing other men were perhaps wiser than I. I shall not do the same again.”

“What are you talking about?” I snapped, fed up with roundabouts and hidden meanings. “If you have something to say, say it!”

“There, my point has just been proven,” he said. Then he came very close to stare down at me. “When you were yet my belonging on Rimilia, what would have been done to you had you had the temerity to speak to me in such a way? And above that, would you have spoken to me so?”

I stared up at hard, unamused blue eyes and shaggy blond hair, wondering exactly why it was that I hard spoken to him as I had. It was hard not remembering what he was like, but for some reason the thought hadn’t stayed with me.

“Maybe I’m more interested in suicide these days,” I shrugged, looking down at the wrinkled caldin I wore and smoothing at the creases. My voice had been somewhat faint, which brought a chuckle to his mind.

“You still have not answered my first question,” he persisted, looking at me in a way I could feel. “Had we been upon Rimilia, what would have been done to you?”

“You would have beaten me,” I mumbled after a minute, keeping my head down, knowing when I really was beaten. If men like Garth couldn’t stand up to him, what chance did I have?

“Nothing quite so dramatic, as you very well know,” he corrected, his voice not giving an inch. “You would have been switched for the insolence, punished to teach you to curb your tongue. Is this not true?”

I nodded reluctantly without saying anything, still looking at my lap, by then convinced I’d never be able to look up again. Feeling brave when I was all alone or just talking to Garth wasn’t hard to do; with Tammad standing over me, giant-sized and without a hesitation in his mind, it was just about impossible.

“The men of your worlds will accept insolence from their wendaa, thinking they achieve peace by doing so,” he said, still in that same, remorseless voice. “They plead and coax to attain their goal, forgetting their manhood in their frantic search for a manner in which to appease their females. They forget that appeasement is not necessary with one who obeys you to keep from punishment. You were taught to obey me, wenda; was the condition as confining as you first believed it would be, as damaging to your sense of dignity?”

I hesitated even longer over that one, remembering bow wonderful my time with him had been, once we began really working together. I had done everything be asked, had lived to please him—but I bad been in love with him then, really in love. I’d had no doubts, no worries, no insecurities over what he was after—but that was all behind us.

“It’s not the same now,” I muttered, wishing I had the courage to look up at him. “I couldn’t do it again, not the way it was.”

“You will find that it is more than possible to do again,” he said, and his hand finally came to touch my hair. “Once we are upon Rimilia, among our people, you will recall what others have allowed you to forget. You will recall that it is I to whom you belong, not the darayse of your worlds. Once we have returned to our home, we will again find happiness.”

“Going back to your old attitudes won’t change anything,” I told him, terribly aware of the gentleness of his touch. “You speak of our people and our home, but that’s not what they are and we both know it. The good time you remember was when we worked together, not when I was your obedient servant. Forcing me to obey you won’t bring those times back.”

“Such remains to be seen,” he answered, sitting down behind me on the bed. “I may do no less than make the attempt.” His bands came to my arms and I was gently turned sideways, then lowered to my back to lie across the bed. He sat beside me, looking down at me, the hum in his mind growing stronger the longer he stared. I didn’t want to lie there in front of him like the living sacrifice in a pagan ritual, but sitting up again was out of the question. He didn’t want me sitting up, and his thoughts made that abundantly clear. He continued to stare silently for a moment, then his hands came first to my left wrist and then to my right, untying the thin leather ties holding the sleeves of the imad closed. After my wrists his hands went to my waist, opening the leather ties there, turning the imad into even less of a covering than it had been. I could feel my breathing increase to match my heartbeat, both uncontrollable as my mind floundered around, trying to think of something to do to stop him. He had no right to open my clothing like that, he had no right!

“Remove the imad,” he said, a faint grin on his face for the wide-eyed, frantic expression I could feel possessing me. “I would look at the woman who is my belonging.”

He made no attempt to remove the imad himself, undoubtedly demonstrating his right to command me—and demanding an example of how well I would obey. I hesitated a very long moment, trying to tell myself I didn’t have to do it, watching his mind closely to see how he took my hesitation. I intended refusing if I could get away with it, but it didn’t take long to see that refusal wasn’t going to be allowed. His faint grin faded to nothing as his thoughts took on a tinge of anger, the muscles in his wide shoulders beginning to tighten at the same time. I swallowed at the instantly growing hardness of his thoughts and began to sit up to do as I’d been told, but his hand came to my throat to press me back down again.

“Remove the imad without rising,” he said, his voice nearly a growl, his hand heavy on my throat. “You have not been given permission to rise.”

I swallowed a second time against the pressure of his hand, wilting under the weight of his stare. As soon as he removed his hand I hurried to squirm out of the imad, pulling it off over my bead and out from beneath me as quickly as I could. I had never in my entire life thought of myself as a coward—until the moment I had first been taught what a true barbarian was like.

“And now the caldin,” be said when I held the imad in my hand, his fingers making brief, easy work of the sash knot. I dropped the imad and pushed the caldin down past my hips, then kicked it off onto the floor. I was nearly frantic in my rush to obey, and the laughter in his thoughts came as crashingly as a flood of freezing water.

“And just so quickly will you obey in future,” he grinned, reaching across me to take the imad and throw it after the caldin. “Even should every l’lenda who follows me be about, you will not hesitate nor disobey. Your body, though at present too slim, will not displease them. It certainly does not displease me.”

I closed my eyes and put an arm over them, the burning red of humiliation covering me completely. I knew how pleased he was with the way I looked, but I could tell he was even more pleased with the way he had made me obey him.

What he’d said about stripping me in front of his men was meant to add to my humiliation, not to be taken as a serious threat. On Rimilia the concept would not be a threat, merely a matter of things-as-they-were. Men and women bathed together without shame, and women bathed while men stood guarding them. Despite everyone else’s views, I had never quite gotten to the point of nonchalance over the matter, and Tammad knew it.

“How lovely a woman is in the sight of a man,” my tormentor continued, suddenly putting his hand on my thigh. I gasped and tried to pull away, but his fingers tightened, holding my flesh prisoner. “The softness of her body is a constant delight, designed to stir him beyond all control. Your body stirs me like no other, Terril mine. Open your eyes and look upon he to whom you belong.”

Slowly, reluctantly, I moved my arm away from my face and opened my eyes, blinking back the bright spots dancing in my vision. Haloed in the midst of them was Tammad, a man who never worried about appeasing a woman.

“Woman, you are mine!” he said, his expression and thoughts fierce. “No man of my world may claim you without facing me with swords; no man of your worlds may deny me for they are nearly all darayse. Once we found happiness together, and I mean to see it so again. Think only of achieving such happiness, for in no other way will you find peace. There are none to take you from me, as you now so obviously hope, none to return you to your former life. You are mine and will remain so.”

“You forget about my government,” I said in a rush, hurrying to get the words out before my throat closed up. “There aren’t so many Primes around that they’ll give one up without a fuss. What if they send troops after you and—and-sh-shoot you down?”

I stumbled over the words as I said them, but not because of what Tammad’s reaction might be. The possibility of the giant barbarian being shot down was not as remote as it might be, and no one deserved that, not even him.

“Your government wishes to deal with me,” he answered, scorn in his mind for the entire transaction. “Once before they granted me your body, to be used as I wished the while you used your talent. Think you they will deny me now, when I have the leadership they wished me to have? Prime or no, you are no more than wenda to them, Terril. One benefit accruing to a man who is victorious is the wenda of his choice. You are my choice.”

“That isn’t true!” I cried, looking up at him where he sat so close above me. “Last time they made you promise to return me! This time they won’t let you take me at all!”

“My word was given only for your comfort,” he said, sadness in his tone. “The Murdock McKenzie, and through him, the Rathmore Hellman, knew I meant to keep you and they did not attempt to dissuade me. It was no more than misunderstanding that the Murdock McKenzie allowed your departure before I might arrive to reclaim you. Because of your words to him, it was his belief that I had tired of you. When he learned that this was not so, he brought this vessel for my use. Though he stands as father to you, hama, he will not refuse my wishes.”

“I won’t believe it’s all so one way,” I said, shaking my head against the certainty in him. “My people won’t give me up without an argument on no more than your say so. I’m worth more to them than a simple item of trade to sweeten a bargain. I’m a Prime—and I’m one of them.”

He sighed as he looked down at me, his mind unangered by my arguments, his light eyes serious and sympathetic. He wasn’t bothered by what I’d said simply because he was convinced it wasn’t true.

“For your sake do I wish there would be need to do battle with your people for you,” he said, leaning down beside me to put his arms around me. “I would gladly face whatever battle there was, yet there will be no battle. When this occurs, do not despair, hama. Recall the fact of my love, and know that you go to people who will make you one of them. Those who live by constant bargaining may know no loyalty—for, in the presence of loyalty, bargaining comes a poor second.”

I stared at the understanding in his face for a moment then turned my head away, knowing he was letting me keep my hopes of rescue after all, just to show me how wrong I was. He was absolutely certain that my people would let him walk off with me, but I couldn’t believe that. I was a native of Central and would not be abandoned, not after all the years I’d worked for the Amalgamation. No group, not even a government, could be that insensitive.

I intended spending a good deal of time listing in my mind all the reasons why the barbarian was wrong, but it didn’t work out that way. One minute I was thinking defensive thoughts and the next, almost to my shock, my body was registering gentle tease-kisses and feather-light caresses. I turned my head back to look at the barbarian, trying to understand what he was doing. Out and out rape was his usual style, without finesse and without exception, but suddenly he seemed to be in a teasing mood, his shaggy blond head bent over me almost casually, with passion nowhere to be felt.

“What are you doing?” I asked, stirring uncomfortably at the way his fingers trailed slowly up and down my thighs, backdropping the touch of his lips near my breasts.

“I merely amuse myself,” he answered in distraction, seemingly lost in thought over something else entirely. He wasn’t paying attention to what he was doing, as though he were engaged in the equivalent of doodling or some such. I didn’t care much for his concept of self-amusement, but it was certainly better than rape.

Or so I thought to begin with. After another few moments of it, I was considerably less certain. He lay beside me across the bed, his right arm beneath me and holding me to him, his left hand free to move all over my body, tracing, trailing, tickling and teasing. Not once in all the movement had he touched me intimately, not once had his lips pressed themselves to my breasts, and yet, despite these lacks, my flesh had begun to burn and quiver, the movements of my discomfort growing sharper and more demanding. I didn’t understand what was happening, but I didn’t have to understand it to dislike it. I stood it for as long as I could, then simply had to say something.

“Can I—get up now?” I tried, hoping he’d miss the unevenness of my voice. “I’m—tired of staying in bed.”

“No,” he answered in the same distraction, not even slowing the rhythm of his movements. His mind was still directed elsewhere, his body uninterested in what his hands and lips were doing. I could feel the heat of his closeness, underscored by the strange, male smell of him, increased by his constant touch on my body. I closed my eyes and swallowed a moan, then tried to pretend I was elsewhere.

In less time than it takes to form the thought, I discovered pretense was impossible. I was being held by a man I’d had sex with many times, a man who usually overwhelmed me with his desire, a man who bad taught my body to feel the same desire. He was doing no more than playing with a toy now, but the toy was growing frantic for the way he usually touched her, for the way he drew instant fire from her. I moved against him deliberately, hoping for a forceful response, hoping to direct the movement of his hand, feeling the sweat break out all over me when the ploy failed. His broad hand moved across my belly, stroked down the top of my right thigh, rose slowly on the inside of the same thigh—then shifted to stroke down the top of my left thigh. I shivered and pressed to him again, intending to meet the hand that now rose on the inside of the thigh, spreading my knees and moving my hips downward—but the hand was suddenly gone from where it had been, moving, instead, over my right side. I moaned in frustration and disappointment, aching and sweating, at a loss to know what to do.

“Tammad, please!” I gasped out at last, putting a hand to the broad, tanned chest I was being held against. “Rape me if you have to, but don’t torture me any longer. I can’t bear it.”

“I have no interest in raping a woman,” he answered, finally moving calm blue eyes to my face. “A man, in his need, will use the woman he desires, hoping to cause her to desire him as well. Should it prove impossible to kindle this desire, his interest in the woman must necessarily fade, even if only for a short while. There is little pleasure in feeling desire for one who has no desire for you.”

“B—but you can’t mean that!” I stuttered, literally horrified. “You can’t continue making me feel this way and not do anything about it! I’ll explode! I’ll die!”

“Your need does seem much upon you,” he agreed, running a finger down between my breasts to wipe the sweat away. “In times past I gladly saw to such need, yet found little gratitude for the effort. Was I not reviled for having intruded upon your weakness, for having done—ungentlemanly—things? As it is restraint you seem to prefer, I have decided to attempt such restraint. You will undoubtedly be much the happier.”

He turned his attention back to my body then, and suddenly his tongue was on me, licking at a drop of sweat. I choked on the shock that flashed through my body, trying to scream and cry out and argue all at once. I had never been that badly in need before, not without his doing something about it.

“Please, please!” I begged, writhing in his arm against his body. “You can’t leave me like this, please, you can’t!”

“But I do not desire you,” he said very simply, his mind confirming the words as those sober blue eyes returned to me. “The restraint I have imposed upon myself disallows this. I am not a woman, able to perform at any time. Restraint robs a man of ability.”

“Restraint be damned!” I screamed, struggling against the way he held me. “Throw it off! Don’t let it rule you any longer!”

“What reason have I to throw it off?” he asked, raising one eyebrow. “What reason have I to fight it?”

“I’ll give you a reason,” I growled, and pulled so hard I broke his grip, then threw my arms around his neck. His surprise raised both his eyebrows, and then I was too close to see his eyebrows any longer. I kissed him, as hard and demandingly as he had ever kissed me, pressing my body against his to increase the pleasure of contact. He didn’t resist me or try to push me away, but the feeling I wanted didn’t surface in him, and I knew it almost immediately. I kept our lips together for another minute, then finally backed away.

“What am I doing wrong?” I demanded, kneeling in front of him, watching his mind as the faint pleasure he had gotten out of the kiss flickered and died. “Why aren’t you feeling anything?”

“Perhaps the time is wrong,” he shrugged, shifting from his elbow to lie flat on his back. “Perhaps it is no more than the fact that I am uncomfortable in my haddin. It is rather warm in this place.”

“Your haddin,” I mumbled, desperately seizing on anything that could be the reason for his coldness. I quickly turned to the brown body-cloth wrapped around his loins and began tugging at it, looking for the end that would unwrap it. He grunted when my frustration made me pull the wrong end run too hard, then reached down to start the unwrapping for me.

“I had best assist you before your desire unmans me,” he muttered, but I knew he wasn’t laughing at me because his mind showed no laughter. Once he had gotten the end loose I finished the unwrapping, then threw the haddin after my imad and Haddin. He had helped further by raising his hips to let me remove the haddin, but once that was done be lay still again without showing the least amount of interest in me. He looked somewhat foolish with his legs hanging so far off the bed, but I wasn’t in a position to appreciate anything having to do with foolishness.

“Now what do I do?” I asked, shaking my hair away from my face. “Do you need anything else to make you more comfortable? How about a pillow for your head?”

“How will a pillow for my head bring me desire for a woman?” he asked, watching as I bit at my lip. “Only a woman may bring me desire for a woman.”

“Well, I’m a woman,” I pointed out eagerly, moving a little closer to him. “Don’t I do anything to make you desire me? You said you were pleased with my body.”

“Perhaps the sight would do more had you not grown so thin,” he sighed, moving his hand toward me then changing his mind and taking it back. “No, the effort is too great.”

“Please try!” I begged, leaning forward to put my hands on his chest. “I’ll help you if you’ll just tell me what to do!”

“I find myself easily accepting the fact that you have no knowledge of how to excite and please a man,” he said, looking up into my anxious eyes. “What man of your worlds would demand that you please him, you who stands so much higher than he? I suspect all women are treated so, begged for their favor then praised for no more than the use of their bodies. Had I realized this sooner, I would not have accustomed you to no more than acceptance of my use.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, finding it impossible to follow what he had said. If he was making comparisons again, I didn’t want to know what he was talking about. Every time he made comparisons, a little more of my self-esteem was chipped away.

“It is nothing of immediate concern,” he said, and suddenly he was looking at me differently. His hands came to my arms and he pulled me close, so close he almost could have kissed me. “Should you truly wish my desire, you must say so now,” he rapped, staring at me so sternly I wanted to cringe. “I have no wish to be aroused and then spurned, pushed to one side as though I were a rag. Do you desire me, woman? Will you raise my need and then see to it?”

Numbly, woodenly, I nodded, not really knowing what he was talking about but too desperate to disagree. When he told me what I bad to do to arouse him, I almost cried; I had never done anything like that before and I was sure I’d do something wrong or be sick or maybe even faint. I’d never really fainted before either, but I could see that the longer I associated with the barbarian, the better my chances would become.

It was silly to be timid with a body I knew so well—or thought I knew so well—but I discovered I wasn’t as aggressive as some people considered me. It’s one thing to let a man know where you stand with words, quite another to be the one to begin the exercises. I put my hand out and touched his thigh, lightly, almost without contact, suddenly more shy than I’d been during my very first sexual experience. He lay quietly watching me, his mind totally unanticipating, totally lacking in active cooperation. If I didn’t raise his interest nothing would happen, but I wasn’t sure I could raise his interest. If I were clumsy he would probably give up entirely, and how could I not be clumsy when compared to the other women he’d known? No woman of his world would even consider refusing him, even if it had been her option to refuse. He could have any woman he wanted, as often as he liked, all of them eager to please him and knowing how to do it. I looked at him in misery, finding I had already given up even though I didn’t want to give up, and something of my problem must have touched his understanding. He hesitated very briefly, somehow seemingly considering options, and then his hands were on my arms again, pulling me close. His lips touched mine with less demand than he normally showed, but his mind warmed toward mine, telling me without words that he wanted me and approved of me. The need I had felt till then had been purely physical, but being held in his arms like that extended the need to a psychological one—and satisfied that part of it. He held me gently, with loving approval and I suddenly knew I wouldn’t fail him or disappoint him. I needed to give him pleasure but I also wanted to, more than I’d ever wanted to do anything. The feeling built higher and higher until I couldn’t stand it any longer, until I had to pull from his lips and arms and begin kissing him all over.

His body was rough and hard, covered with light hair that was nearly lost against the tan of his skin. I pressed my lips to him with high desire, inhaling deeply of the musky odor of him, the pleasant leather-and-metal-and-animal smell that clung like a faint aura of definition, expressing this one man without confusion or mistake. I also tasted him as I went, knowing his clean, warm flavor as well as I knew the strength of his thoughts, the touch of his hands. I became aware of the deep slowness of his breathing and realized that it was a forced slowness, a contrived match to the shallow-growing disinterest his mind was attempting to maintain. I laughed to myself and ran my tongue down his belly, feeling the shudder in his flesh as I did so, feeling the agonizing flare of heat in my own body as I finally reached the goal he had ordered me to. I touched and kissed and ran my tongue all about, taken by a frenzy that was a driving obsession, blind and deaf to everything but what I was doing to him and what that very doing was doing to me. He may have shouted and closed his hand around my calf, nearly crushing it in reflex action, nearly rising off the bed; I may have thrown my arms around his thighs to keep from being bucked out of place, to keep from being deprived of obtaining my obsession’s demands; the sole fact that carne to me clearly was the fact of his immediate response, the fact of his uncontrollable desire, undeniable and simultaneous in both body and mind. His mind again attempted control of his body, presenting demands for slowness and patience, repeating the need for denial of immediate response. Again and again the attempt was grade but the body, awash in a flood of liquid lightning and drowned in delight, proved deaf to the demands. Sensation alone ruled the body I clung to, the body I tasted to its very soul; when the explosion came it was unexpected and violent, seemingly designed to drive me away. I cried out and began to retreat, suddenly confused and unsure, the pleasure he projected battering me down, subtracting his need from the equation we’d formed and leaving only mine. I cried out again but this time with my mind, sending him my body’s flames as I had refused to do earlier, as I had been too proud to do earlier. his projection changed tone and pitch immediately, reverting to raging desire, a renewal of need so strong it frightened me. He snarled and threw me to my back, taking possession of my body so quickly I had no time to express my fright, only to gasp and melt in his arms, his beyond question and doubt. I had what I’d begged for, what I’d wheedled and worked for; all that was left to do was accept.