John Norman - Time Slave

“You have been long from my collar,” he said.

“Beat me,” she said.

“If you run away again,” he said, “I will kill you.”

“I will not run away again,” she said, “-Master.”

Her body, abruptly, was half turned about, as he tore the deerskin skirt from her.

“Lie down,” he said. “Lift your body.”

Swiftly Hamilton, half frightened, obeyed him. He did not take her immediately, but looked upon her.

She looked at him, and saw his anger. She knew he would take his vengeance on her, deep and incredible vengeance, a ruthless hunter’s vengeance, for the months in which she had denied him her body. She trembled, but yet with eagerness to feel his wrath. She waited for him, her body trembling; she waited, a slave, for the master to ventilate, fully, on her helpless beauty, the extreme, pent-up fury of his mighty displeasure; she, a slave, awaited her discipline; she knew she would be sharply disciplined; she, a slave, awaited her punishment; she looked at Tree; she knew she would be well punished; “I love you,” she said; he looked at her with fury, with desire, with lust, such as she had not seen since he, long ago, had tied her in the high prison cave; “I lie before you, as you have ordered me,” said Hamilton; “I lift my body to you, as you have commanded. I am yours. Do with me what you will, Master”; she smiled, tears in her eyes; she arched her back, lifting her body more vulnerably to him; but she saw that he would not be so easily placated; she did not know how long it would take to placate such an anger; it might, she suspected, take weeks, or months; perhaps for more than a year she might be forced to eat from his hand; she looked up again at him, tears loving and sweet in her eyes; “I love you,” she whispered; then she said, “I await my punishment”; then she said, “Punish me, Master.”

Hamilton, turning her head, with her teeth, took the bit of meat from Trees band. He held it. She looked at him. Then he permitted her to have it. She chewed it, and put her head delicately against the hair on his wrist.

“Punish me, Master,” she had said, lying before him, his naked slave, in his collar.

With a cry, almost animal, of rage, of joy, of lust, Tree, a hunter, brutal and cruel, had thrown himself mercilessly upon her.

Well had he punished her. Never again would she so much as dare to think of leaving his side.

“I have come back!” she had cried. “I love you!” she had cried. “I love you!”

Antelope came to Hamilton and, as a joke, put her hand on Hamilton’s back. Hamilton cried out, and winced, but then, as she saw Tree’s frown, was silent, and put down her head, smiling. He did not wish her to cry out. Her back was laced with welts, deep, from the switching she had been given. It hurt her to move, but she was pleased. He had used her five times, almost consecutively, before dragging her to a sapling and lashing her wrists about it; then he had beaten her; when he had done this, he untied her and again, by the hair, threw her to the grass, where he raped her until he could rape her no more, and then told her to run to Old Woman, to help with the food. Stinging, laughing, pulling her skirt about her bruised, aching thighs, she had stumbled to Old Woman. “Hurry, Girl,” had laughed Old Woman, cackling with pleasure, “turn the meat on the spit. Be busy, lazy, good-for-nothing girl!”

“Yes, Old Woman!” had cried Hamilton. “Yes, Old Woman!”

Ugly Girl had come to her, to lick the wounds on her back. “I love you, Ugly Girl,” said Hamilton, kissing her.

About the camp she saw the small boy of the Ugly People, whose parents had been killed by the Weasel People. He had fled to the woods. Ugly Girl, months ago, had found him, and brought him to the camp. He played with the other children, as one of the Men. Tooth was to him as a father. Ugly Girl’s own belly was swollen with young, perhaps, it was possible, with the child of Tooth. Hamilton knew the relationship in evolution of the bands of Ugly People to the bands of the Men was obscure. It was not known if the Men themselves had sprung from a form of Ugly People, or if there had been only, in the remote past of these peoples, a common animal. That seemed most likely. But there was little doubt, in gross matters, as to the similarity of the species. The Ugly People and the Men, in the great patterns of life, were brothers. And the belly of Ugly Girl, even if it were only from the gentle, shambling male of the Ugly People, was heavy with life. Hamilton looked into the wide, deep, simple eyes of Ugly Girl. They are called, among themselves, she thought, the Love People. “I love you, Ugly Girl,” said Hamilton again, kissing her.

Hamilton looked up.

Stone, huge, dour, stood near her. He reached out his large hand. He, gently, touched her head.

“I am pleased to be back,” said Hamilton.

Stone had been long with the Men. He, as a boy, had hunted with Spear. He knew the trails, the weather, the land, the animals. He was powerful. He was hard.

“I am pleased, too,” said Stone. Then he turned away from her. Hamilton smiled. It was about as much emotion as she had ever seen the dour Stone evince.

As she turned the spit, various of the Men, on one pretense or another, welcomed her. “I will need sinew, fine sinew, to bind the points of arrows,” said Arrow Maker. “I will get it for you,” said Hamilton. “I will need hide softened,” said Runner. “Bring me the skin,” said Hamilton. “I will soften it for you.” “Where have you been, and what lands did you see?” asked Fox, Wolf behind him. “Many far places,” said Hamilton. “I went as far, even, as the land of the Horse People,” she said. Hyena, from a ledge, crouching, watched her. He carried a yellow-tufted stick. Then he went back into his cave. He would draw signs on the floor. It had not been important. It had been only the return of a female. Hamilton felt a hand on her buttocks. “Turtle,” said Hawk. For an instant she felt irritation. She felt like telling him to go away, that he was only a boy, but when she turned to face him, to scold him, she was forced to put her head back, that she, a female, and suddenly aware that she was only such, might look him in the eyes. She was startled. He was much taller. Confronting her, looming over her, was a hunter. “Turn the spit,” he said. He was, she recalled, of the Men, and she was only a woman of the Men, a mere female. He grinned down at her. “Yes, Master,” she said, lowering her eyes. Behind Hawk, on wobbly legs, following him, was a wolf cub. It was the survivor of a litter which the Men had found.

When Tree indicated that the women, other than Ugly Girl, might approach her, they flocked about her, holding her and kissing her. There was Cloud, and Antelope, and Feather, and Flower, and Butterfly, and the others. Among them, even, were the red-haired girl, pregnant, radiant, who had been with the Weasel People, and the girl of the Dirt People, who had been she who was to have been sacrificed, who had once been so exquisitely virginally bodied; but no longer was her body the slip that it had been, for now it had known the will and pleasure of hunters; her breasts were larger now, filling with milk, and, beneath the tiny skirt of the hunters, her belly, like that of the red-haired girl, was big with child; she was Hawk’s second woman, fed behind Butterfly.

Nurse, too, and Old Woman, when the others were not looking, kissed her.

When it had been time for the meat to be distributed, Hamilton had taken Flower by the hair, and, baring her teeth, threw her from Tree’s side.

Tree did not interfere, but busied himself with the cutting of meat.

Flower looked furious, tears in her eyes. “You will bear daughters,” said Hamilton, derisively, “who will serve my sons.”