The Price of Hannah Blake

by Donway, Walter

  But she only said, “Foolish. Wasn’t he warned like the rest of us?”

  “This happened before he ever reached Maria—or any of the boys—or me. By then, he was as you saw him that first day they brought him to class.”

  “That is the most glorious peony, Darlene! I love the gardens! How fortunate we all are!”

  “Let’s take it to dinner.”

  “Shall we pluck more?”

  “One beauty shines for them all.”

  As they walked back, Hannah struggled with questions coming too fast to count. How could David with a scornful remark and smile assent to fight Charles—to have Charles “kick his balls for him”? Perhaps he was confident he could win? But then the other boys, lined up if Charles fell. And why did he resist till the guards were called? Cara had warned Hannah again and again what resistance would mean. And three days! Had it required three days until he walked nude into the great room, glancing around him casually, as though without defiance?

  Would he now be a Myra, savoring the cruelty that she learned—or a Lilly, devoted to the world of the troupe and savoring its gifts—or a Rachael, ever-scanning the walls, calculating? Now she knew she would not wait until he took notice of her, talked to her—if he ever did. She had to warn him. Meals didn’t work. To sit down and talk in whispers would become news. Better would be his room after curfew. She knew, now, that curfew meant she had to be in her room. That would mean no one else would be in his room or would see her come or go.

  When the time came, it felt like the night she went to Charles and that awakened the racing pulse, images of dismissal. She dressed and fixed her face as she had that night. And she went barefoot, on tiptoe, after curfew, running the corridors and stairs, pausing at corners, running again. At his door she drew her breath, knocked lightly, and, without waiting, pushed it open and slipped in.

  She stood, back to the door, bosom rising and falling, and said: “I’m sorry. It’s Hannah. I didn’t dare wait outside the door. It’s curfew. Is it all right?”

  The gaslights were lit but low, the room dim. He sat in the single broad, comfortable leather chair, one leg over its arm. He wore his trousers but nothing on top. In the dim light, he looked dark, brooding. He asked, conversationally, “Hannah?”

  She stepped forward. “Me.”

  “Oh, yes, well…”

  “I had to come.”

  He rose and gestured at his chair. “Then sit down.”

  The room was not furnished for guests. There was one easy chair. “Oh, no, I can sit on the floor.” She added, “I don’t mind!”

  He relapsed into the chair and she came over quickly, turned and lowered herself, sitting before him with her legs crossed beneath her. They learned and practiced the pose. At first, it was agony after a few minutes; later, it provided a special comfort. She looked up at him. “I had to come. You are supposed to have that awful fight with Charles. In two days. I’m sure you don’t have to do it.”

  “I accepted the challenge, you know. I don’t know what a cockfight might be, between men, but I have been told the time and place. I will be there.”

  “Why? It’s all a game! Why do you care? You could be hurt again, in…” She stopped. Perhaps she should not say she had heard about the guards.

  He waited.

  What could she say, now,? She said, “I think that he will kick you and try to hurt you—really hurt you.”

  He reached down and indicated his crotch. “Hurt me here? I know all about that!”

  She blurted out, “Did the guards hurt you terribly? Unbearably? How could you let yourself be hurt again?”

  “The story of guards has reached the rest of you? Tell me. How does that work? How does word get around? Who told you?”

  “Darlene,” said Hannah. “I asked. You see, they make sure that somehow you hear what happens if you don’t…do it all right.”

  He nodded.

  “And did they?” asked Hannah.

  “They did many things. When you wish to break a man, you don’t ignore that. It was bad, but they take care not to injure you. That’s something.”

  Hannah struggled to understand the neutral, contemplative tone with which he discussed his ordeal. “But you could not stand it again! You shouldn’t!”

  “If I must.”

  It was infuriating. Men were like this! Why must he? “I will be there, so if you are hurt I can help you. I don’t know what I can do, but I can comfort you.”

  “You can be punished for breaking curfew, can’t you? You are taking a chance, coming here. Would that mean the guards, too? If so, you must leave immediately. At all costs, that must not happen.”

  “Not the guards, for that. They can confine you. Other ways.” She looked down, thinking, and then said, “But why not me, why at all costs? It happened to you.”

  “I cannot think of a woman in the hands of those guards.” His tone now was like a cutting tool, brooking no resistance. “And in a manner of speaking, I chose what happened to me. I knew.”

  “You didn’t think they would break you?”

  “No, I did not. I did not expect it. And when I had had enough, I called a halt.”

  “You gave in.”

  “For then, yes. Could you not get in great danger for a conversation like this—if I were not to be trusted?”

  “I don’t want you to fight Charles.”

  “You are very caring, Hannah. And brave, too. Don’t be at the fight. There is no need. Whatever happens, I shall manage.”

  “I will be there.”

  He shrugged. “Should you be getting back?”

  Was he dismissing her, through with her? She hardly could suppress the questions that rose in her mind. She said, “The great risk is in coming and going. I think there is less risk, later. But if you want me to…”

  He made a gesture of pushing her back to the floor although she had not moved. “But enough about the fight, all right?”

  Did you ever win an argument with men? “I was newest here, before you, you know. Some weeks…” She frowned. “Eight, I think. A few more.”

  “And you have not forgotten the feelings, the first feelings.” It was a declaration.

  “No!” she exclaimed, but then added, “Well, I no longer think about being naked, for anyone to see, and once thought I must die should that occur.”

  His eyes seemed larger, glistening where the light struck them. She wondered if he was imagining her body beneath the black shift. He said, softly, “They take everything, don’t they, Hannah? Modesty, privacy, freedom, your body and what you choose to do with it.” He added, “I am not asking. I know.”

  “They can’t know my thoughts, if I don’t tell them. And they have not taken my memories; those are mine. They do not know my longings.”

  He was studying her intently. His face seemed beautiful to her. What was happening to her? A girl infatuated with a new boy?

  “We will be friends,” he said. It was a statement.

  She nodded. “Yes. That is what I want. I know that a girl here seems—I mean, you see everything…”

  “So a man need not think a woman is her own?”

  She could not look up. “I have given things, things I was not forced to give.”

  He shrugged. “To live. Because this might be your life…”

  “No!”

  “But it must seem so, at times, and you will have what life you can, at whatever price, as long as you can.”

  “I have even forgotten I am a prisoner, sometimes, for a little while,” Hannah whispered.

  “There can be salvation, in that,” he said, “because from that comes the energy to survive, to fight.”

  Hannah wondered, for a wild moment, if this meeting ever could lead to the bed. She blushed furiously. What was happening to her? She rose quickly, said, “Now, I should go,” and almost ran to the door. Before she opened it, she turned, glancing back.

  David said: “Did I tell you that you are beautiful, and brave, and very desirable?�
�

  She had no idea what to say, but he went on, “That is not for tonight. That is for you to know.”

  She turned and seized the doorknob. He called, “Hannah?”

  She looked around; she hoped he did not see the tears in her eyes.

  “Don’t give up.”

  And she slipped out the door, glancing either way, and ran for the stairs.

  Chapter 20

  “You’re the Husband, Tonight, Hannah”

  For some weeks, Hannah had remained ‘the new girl,’ though no one treated her differently, now. Then, shortly after exercises began, one morning, she heard a sound from the direction of the dressing room and turned her head. A girl Hannah never had seen stood there, the wardress behind her. The girl had cried out.

  She wore the knee-length pants and loose blouse that was the daily uniform of the troupe. She had stopped and stepped back, her face blank and staring, as though slapped. She slowly bent over, as with cramps, but she raised her face to stare at the naked leaping figures that filled the room. The wardress blocked her retreat, taking her arm.

  She was a short girl with the dark skin, eyes like night pools, and coal-black hair that made Hannah think of the gypsies at fairs. Her face had a girlish loveliness, with a sensitive mouth that twitched, now, as if she would cry. But most striking was her figure. She did not have the slender, athletic build of the others, not a dancer’s body, but a huge, prominent bosom that filled and stretched the loose blouse. Her legs flared into big hips, though her waist was small between the hips and breasts. The “new” girl did not seem to belong.

  Her hand had closed over her mouth and above it the fathomless eyes had gone round in panic. Her other arm had come up, as though unconsciously, to protect her breasts. At that moment, the exercise changed, requiring Hannah’s attention, and when she looked again the girl was huddled over, head bowed, on the bench.

  Just then, Hannah caught Darlene’s eye. Darlene gave her a wide grin and a wink. Hannah was not the new girl any longer.

  “Be at the gardener’s cottage—where we introduced you to your husband—right after this,” said Darlene, slipping down beside Hannah at dinner. “We want the new girl, today, before the boys. Let them have her later.”

  “No one has seen her yet!” exclaimed Lilly “Dress like a queen, Hannah—you remember!” Hannah felt suddenly empty, hollowed out; this is what Lilly was—affectionate, like a puppy, but without the capacity any longer to know cruelty. Hannah thought, then said, “She looks so different. And so terrified.”

  “We all were,” said Darlene indifferently. “I was. It goes away. I think this girl is here for entertainment entr’acte.”

  Hannah frowned.

  “Well, we once had clowns, sort of. To entertain between acts. They horsed around. Well, with those tits, I think this could be why they brought her. You can do funny things with boobies as big as that. But sexy, too—at least to the duke.”

  Hannah was silent.

  Charlotte said, “I have a trick to get her there. She’s scared stiff, she’ll trust a girl. She thinks only the boys want to get their hands on those tits.”

  “I can’t wait to see them,” exclaimed Myra. “What flesh! I wonder what her pussy hair is like?”

  Hannah ate slowly, rehearsing, image by image, her own initiation. Incredible, how modest she had been! It didn’t matter now, dressed or naked. She admitted that she was intrigued at the thought of watching this new girl go through what she had endured: to see her stripped, that modesty outraged, desperate for anything to cover herself.

  What had happened to her in just two months? What was left of Hannah? The thought filled her with a bottomless panic that grew until there seemed nothing else within her. She felt like clutching Lilly, or Charlotte, or Darlene and begging to be helped.

  There was no help. And then, Darlene said, rising, “I have to get ready. Remember, you’re the new girl, Hannah,” and she seized her tray and left. Hannah looked over at Lilly, who was grinning. Lilly said, “You’re the husband, tonight!”

  She thanked God that David was in his room. She did not sit, she had no time. “They are going to initiate that new girl, tonight. Her name is Miranda.”

  “I saw her, of course. Do you have to go?”

  “I am to do to her what Myra did to me!”

  He said, slowly, “What if you refused?” He added quickly, “I am not saying that you should, but what if you did? It would be new to them, I think. Do they realize that no one forces them to do to new prisoners what their jailers do to them?”

  “What will they do to me?”

  “I imagine they will do anything to defend the tradition.” He grinned, “It reminds me of Cambridge.”

  “Of what?”

  “Oh, my life out there. Hannah. Listen, it is difficult enough to survive, here, without trying to fight the others.”

  Hannah wrestled with a thought. She said, slowly, “But I am not surviving, am it? Not me, myself.”

  He gazed as though unable to get enough of looking at her. He shook his head, sadly, seeming to see something she could not.

  Suddenly, she said, “I have to go and get ready.” She turned and hurried to the door.

  “Hannah?”

  But she opened the door, slipped out, and silently shut it.

  Hannah had selected a light chiffon gown that hugged her breasts, leaving her shoulders bare. She had piled her hair on her head and pinned it, as she and Lilly and Rachael had done many times. She wished she had lost all her freckles. All the others were beautiful, like fairies in a fairyland. Eyes were intent on the door; silence was essential. The victim must not be warned. And then, Lilly began to giggle, a little wildly, and Rachael clasped her palm over her mouth.

  “Hush!” commanded Darlene. “All of you!’ But Lilly could not stop; she held both hands over her lips, half bent over, her face bright red. Perhaps, thought Hannah, all this was not so “natural” to her. She had heard of “hysteria.”

  A voice just outside the door said, urgently, “In here, Miranda! You’ll be safe!” It was Charlotte. The door began to swing open and another voice, shaking, tearful, said, “Oh, I cannot thank you!”

  Miranda stepped into the room, Charlotte just at her back, and looked around. The lights flared on and they burst into applause. Charlotte pushed the girl a step farther and swung shut the door; the lock turned. She held the keys aloft, triumphant. Another successful skit.

  Miranda seemed a stricken animal. She backed, groping behind her for the door. She shook her head slowly, the wonderful dark curls swaying. “No!” she moaned, almost inaudibly. Her arms came up, in the characteristic gesture, to cover the huge bosom. She must have done that ever since she developed, thought Hannah, painfully aware that they fascinated men. She was as naïve and vulnerable as Hannah had been—more so, if that were possible.

  Myra said, impatiently, “What are we waiting for? Let’s strip her!”

  “No!” screamed Miranda. She backed into Charlotte, who seized her arms. Miranda whirled, half breaking away, and swung her fist at Charlotte. She screamed, “Traitor! I will kill you!”

  They were the first words Hannah had heard her speak. It was an accent difficult to understand, although the words were English. Hannah had heard Spanish; it sounded a little like that.

  Myra, Charlotte, and Rachael, all strong and quick, and with the ease of trained athletes, quickly stripped her. It was roughly done, because the girl fought like a cornered animal, but soon Miranda stood in the middle of the room, naked, seeming struck dumb. Hannah realized that this girl would not have an “easy” initiation.

  Charlotte and Myra seized her arms on either side and straightened her up. All eyes were on the girl’s breasts, larger than any Hannah ever had seen, dark brown, hanging almost to her navel, with nipples of a size to match and almost black. As the girl struggled, the breasts swung and softly clapped together.

  “Hey!” said Lilly excitedly, “Did anyone look at her pussy!” She pointe
d. “What a garden!”

  It was true. Between Miranda’s broad hips—hips that looked lazy, stolid—was a belly from the base of which flared a broad, jet-black wave of hair that reached almost to her navel. It seemed thick as fur between her legs. Hannah’s own loins gave a shudder; she did not want to think it was excitement.

  The audience now scrutinized their discovery, pointing and commenting, as the girl tried to bend forward to cover herself. She flushed deeply on her chest, up her neck, and across her face. And she writhed, pressing her legs together tightly, but the girls only laughed because, as she did, the breasts jiggled enticingly. Hannah stared, transfixed; this girl had no chance!

  Darlene stepped forward, more queenly than a queen, in a flowing pink gown. The girl stared at her, baffled, as though Darlene had risen through the floor. Darlene advanced and Miranda shrank back—but not far, held by Myra and Charlotte—until the satin of Darlene’s gown almost brushed Miranda’s breasts. For a few moments, Darlene did not speak, seeming to savor the tension. Then she intoned, “I am Darlene, Miranda. We all are dressed in honor of your wedding night, which is tonight…”

  She continued, as she had with Hannah, until, finishing, she turned to the others and ordered, “Prepare her!”

  When Miranda had been half-dragged into the “bedroom” by Lilly and Rachael, Darlene fixed her gaze on Hannah and said, “Charlotte, help Hannah to prepare.”

  Hannah knew, but she asked, anyway. “Prepare? For what?”

  Darlene immediately perceived the opposition. She said, “Prepare you, the groom, to take Miranda’s cherry. Her arsehole cherry. Like when Myra initiated you. Now you get to do it. You wear the dildo.”

  “But Myra wasn’t the new girl, then,” said Hannah.

  “No,” said Darlene. “Myra begged to do it and the girl gave up her turn.”