Time Slave

7

Brenda Hamilton, fascinated, watched the leopard in the translation cubicle.

It was a beautiful, terrible beast.

It lay on its side on the smooth plastic of the cubicle. Its four feet had been tied together. Its jaws were muzzled. It was helpless. It had been drugged. It was now recovering. It whined, and struggled.

Hamilton recalled how she had first seen it in the wild, in the branch of a tree, lying across the carcass of a slain calf. Gunther, while William had distracted it, had struck it with an anesthetic bullet.

It had been captured.

Brenda, with fascination, watched the twisting beast, growling, whining.

She wore the white dress.

She sat in a cheap, kitchen chair, made of metal. Her hands, in Gunther’s handcuffs, were fastened behind her back. The cuffs had been placed before two of the narrow metal back bars of the chair and then pulled through. They had then been behind the chair.

“Sit in the chair,” Gunther had said.

He then pulled her wrists behind the chair and locked them in the cuffs, confining her to the chair.

The chain he had removed from her right ankle, looped it twice about the metal rung between the front legs of the chair, and then, snugly, fastened it once more about her right ankle. Her ankles were held back, close to the metal rung, fastened to it.

She was thus, doubly, confined to the chair.

Brenda watched the leopard. It was a capture.

She felt the handcuffs on her wrists, the chain on her ankles. She knew that she, too, was a capture.

Herjellsen sat beneath the steel hood, bent over, his fists clenched.

This night there was no play of light.

This night there was no dislocation of her time sense.

She watched the beast in the cubicle. It was uncomfortable, rebellious, growling, helpless.

Herjellsen sweated, fists clenched, bent over beneath the steel hood.

William and Gunther stood in the background.

Suddenly it seemed all strange to her, impossible, insane. She knew that what they were attempting to do could not be done. Even a child would know that.

It is insane, she felt. Insane! And she was locked in a shack, cuffed and shackled, with madmen!

The experiments, she knew, did not always go well.

She wondered if they ever had.

She recalled William and Gunther discussing Herjellsen, and fraud, and illusion, and madness, in the Land Rover.

She surely could not have seen once what she thought she had seen.

It could not have been true.

Then she was terrified.

She saw Gunther looking at her.

Herjellsen, at last, worn, exhausted, bent, withdrew from under the hood and, painfully, wearily, straightened his body. He looked at her blankly, his eyes blinking behind the large, heavy convex lenses. Then he left the shack.

Gunther turned off the equipment.

William left the shack.

It had been a failure.

The beast still lay, helpless, twisting, on the floor of the cubicle.

They had not transmitted it Gunther opened one of the cuffs and freed Hamilton’s wrists from the metal back bars of the chair, then closed it again on her wrist, keeping her hands cuffed behind her. He then freed her left ankle from the chain, disengaged the chain from the metal chair rung, and then, with the padlock, again fastened the chain about her left ankle, freeing her now completely of the chair, keeping her shackled.

He then lifted her small body lightly in his strong arms and carried her to her cell, where, after permitting her to relieve herself, he briefly withdrawing, he cuffed her to the cot, freed her of the shackles, and left her for the night.

She heard the padlocks locking the door.

“Gunther!” she cried, jerking against the handcuff.

But there was no response. She heard his feet leaving the porch.

“Gunther,” she wept, “what if it doesn’t work? What will they do with me?”

She lay in terror, handcuffed to the cot, looking up at the corrugated tin roof.

“Lie on your stomach on the cot,” said Gunther.

“Yes, Gunther,” said Brenda Hamilton.

It was now the night following the failure of the experiment with the leopard.

Hamilton had already placed her left wrist under the iron bar at the head of the cot. She felt Gunther lock the cuff on her wrist. How snug, and inflexible, it felt. Then she heard the other cuff closed about the iron bar. Then Gunther bent to free her of the shackles. She knew it would now be ten thirty P.M. At this time she was put to the cot.

“Gunther, she whispered, prone, the left side of her face on the mattress.

“Yes,” he said. He removed the chain from her ankles. He stood up.

“What-what if the experiment does not go well?”

He looked at her.

“What if it doesn’t work-if Herjellsen is not successful?”

“You mean if he cannot transmit you?” asked Gunther.

“Yes,” she said, “-if I cannot be transmitted.”

“Surely you understand,” said Gunther, “that you cannot be released.”

She turned, wrist back, lying on her side. She looked at him, fearfully. She, dragging the handcuff along the iron bar, sat up on the edge of the cot, her body twisted, turned to face him.

“You know too much,” said Gunther. “You could put us in prison for years.” He regarded her. “If the experiment is unsuccessful, if you cannot be transmitted, you will be disposed of in the bush.”

“I do not want to die,” she said, “Gunther.” She sat on the edge of the cot. She shook her head. “You would not kill me, would you, Gunther?” she asked.-

“Yes,” said Gunther.

She put her right leg on the cot, beneath her; her left leg was not on the cot; the toes only of her left leg touched the floor; her left leg was flexed; her body faced Gunther; her left wrist was back, handcuffed to the iron bar at the head of the cot.

She shook her head. “Don’t kill me,” she said.

He regarded her, unmoved.

“Sell me,” she whispered.

He did not speak.

“I am a Caucasian,”, she said. “William says that I am beautiful.”

Gunther said nothing.

“Surely you could get a good price on me,” she said.

“Do you know what you are speaking of?” asked Gunther.

“There are markets, are there not, secret markets, where white women are sold?”

Gunther looked at her. He did not speak for a long time. Then he spoke. “Yes,” he said.

Hamilton looked at him, agonized, pleading.

“I have been in two such markets,” said Gunther.

“You?” she said.

“I am trusted,” he said.

“Don’t kill me,” said Hamilton. “-Sell me.”

Gunther smiled. “What do you think your body is worth?” he asked.

“I-I don’t know,” she said.

“It might be interesting to see you on the block,” he said.

Her lower lip trembled.

“Can you smile?” he asked. “Can you pose? Can you excite the interest of buyers? Can you move your body in such a way that it suggests that it could be a source of incredible pleasure for a man?”

She looked at him with horror.

“If you do not perform well,” said Gunther, “you will be whipped.”

Hamilton said nothing.

“There are difficulties in transportation,” said Gunther. “You would have to be smuggled across borders in a truck, perhaps at a given point carried northward in a dhow.”

“Drug me,” said Hamilton. “I do not care if I do not awake until I am dragged naked before the buyers.”

He looked at her, carefully. “It could be done with you, I suppose,” he said.

“Yes, Gunther,” she said, “yes!”

“It would be simpler,” said he, “to dispose of you in the bush.”

“No, please, no,” she wept. “Sell me! Sell me!”

“Perhaps,” said Gunther, “perhaps.” He looked at her. “I shall take it under consideration,” he said.

He went to the door.

“Gunther,” she said.

He turned.

“What is done to such women?” she asked. “Where are they kept?”

He shrugged. “In isolated villas,” he said, “in desert palaces, in luxurious slave brothels, catering to a rich clientele.”

“I see,” she said. Then she said, “Gunther, you have denied me sexual experience. I gather that if I were a slave, I would be granted such experiences.”

Gunther threw back his head and laughed. “Yes,” he said, “your master, or masters, and their guests, or clients, would see that you served them well.”

She put down her head, blushing furiously.

“Even superbly,” he added, smiling.

She clenched her small fists.

“You said,” said Gunther, “that you were my whore.”

“I am,” she said, “Gunther.” She looked at him. “Any time you want me, I’m your whore.”

“A slave girl,” he said, “is the whore of any man who buys her.”

“I know,” she whispered.

He laughed. “Any man,” he said.

“I know,” she whispered.

“You know nothing,” he said.

She looked at him, puzzled.

“A whore,” he said, “is a thousand times above a slave.”

“No!” she cried.

“Yes,” he laughed.

“Is it true, Gunther?” she begged.

“Men care more for their dogs, than for their female slaves,” said Gunther.

“No,” she whispered.

“It is true,” said Gunther. “I know.” He looked at her. “Would you not prefer to be disposed of in the bush?”

“No, Gunther,” she said. “Sell me.”

“Then,” asked Gunther, looking at her evenly, “you are truly willing to be a female slave?”

“Yes, Gunther,” she whispered.

He regarded her, half kneeling, half sitting on the cot, in the brief white dress, facing him, on the striped mattress, her hand back, handcuffed to the iron bar at the head of the cot.

“I always thought you were a slave,” he said.

She looked at him, angrily.

“Slave,” he sneered.

“Yes-slave!” she said.

He left.