by John Ringo
“I’m not that great but I’m learning,” Shanea said happily. “Come on, we’ll work on some shorts for you.”
“Not pants?” Megan said. “A shirt? Maybe a dress?”
“No, not pants,” Shanea said, for the first time with a serious tone. “Megan, please don’t say things that don’t make sense, okay? Did you see anyone wearing pants?”
“No,” Megan said, slowly. “I guess that was pretty stupid, huh? I guess, maybe, a halter top? Short shorts? What was that thing they used to wear, I’ve seen it sometimes. Oh, yeah, a miniskirt?”
“What’s that?”
“Think ‘school-girl look.’ ”
“Oh, is that what they used to wear in schools?” Shanea said, her eyes widening. “Were they harems, too?”
“Sometimes you have to wonder,” Megan frowned. “Sewing. Bleck.”
CHAPTER TWO
There had been a pair of cutting scissors in the room, chained to the shelves. Other than that they had small cutting blades about the size of her thumbnail to section the cloth. Megan noticed that she hadn’t seen anything resembling a knife or any serious bladed weapon in the whole harem. They had cut sections of cloth and headed back to their seat by Amber.
“What are you going to make?” Shanea asked.
Megan looked around at the other girls. Most of them simply wore the light robes that were provided, but a few had other items. One girl had a lovely blue pair of panties and bra with lace on the edges. But Megan knew that was far beyond her ability, even if she felt “right” wearing nothing but panties and a bra in public.
But she really wanted some support for her breasts. And something down lower would be good as well.
“I think… something to go around my top and bottom,” Megan said, then shook her head at Shanea’s incipient worried frown. “Nothing too… covering, damnit. Something that just covers the breasts, maybe buttoned. Just a few buttons. And pretty much the same thing on the bottom. If I can use those to figure out how to sew, I’ll look at making things like bras and panties.”
“Oh, those are hard,” Shanea said, sadly. “Mine always look terrible. Only Mirta is that good. She’s so good nobody picks on her even if she isn’t one of Ashly’s friends.”
“Ashly?” Megan asked, picking up a length of heavy blue silk that rippled like water in her hands. “What about this?” she said, wrapping it around her breasts over the robe.
“Shorter,” Shanea said, darkly. “Narrower, whatever.”
“Great,” Megan snorted, folding the cloth almost in half. “They’re going to hang out the bottom if I go this narrow.”
“Trust me, go with narrow,” Shanea said. “If Christel thinks you’re trying to ‘cover up’ too much you’re not going to like it.”
“Got it.” Megan frowned. “Shorter. Now, Ashly,” she said, setting the cloth down and trying to figure out what to cut off. And how; the narrow cutters were hard to figure out.
“She’s the one playing backgammon,” Shanea whispered, gesturing carefully to the far side of the room where a tall, heavily built blonde was lying on her stomach looking at the board, one foot raised in the air and lazily waving back and forth.
“What about her?” Megan asked. She was trying to cut a straight line in the cloth and failing miserably despite going with the weave. The cutters were wooden crescents with two small blades embedded in them. When pressed into the edge of the fabric they would start a triangular cut and they maintained it well, as long as the fabric was kept taut. But when she’d stop to tighten the fabric the cut would waver. And it wasn’t particularly straight to begin with. She suspected her first effort was not going to be useable in public.
“She’s next after Christel,” Shanea said. “Christel doesn’t say that, but Ashly does, and she’s really mean. She’s the one that turned in Amber for talking about escaping. And she’s got some friends that help her. She’ll hurt you; she likes to hurt people.”
“Some people are like that,” Megan replied. I’m one of them. At least when I’m this angry. “So does she hurt you?”
“Not so much anymore,” Shanea said, sadly. “I just try to keep my head down and not bother anybody. Most of the time they don’t bother me. Mostly.”
Imprisonment experiments. Dad had talked about that one time, too. Take any random group of people. Make one side the “guards” and the other side the “prisoners.” Within weeks the guards are sadistic to the prisoners and the prisoners have separated into packs for mutual protection.
Something else about prison society. “It’s human society with all the stops off, honey. You have to establish that you’re not the bottom of the pecking order. And you have to establish that fast.”
Prisons were as much a part of the past as… well, war, come to think of it. But her father, it seemed sometimes, knew everything. And a lot of it he had passed on.
“Sometimes they want me to have sex with them,” Shanea continued. She had cut out a triangle of cloth and was contemplating it idly, as if thinking about something in the past. “It’s… sometimes it’s not so bad.”
“Shanea?” Megan said, gently.
“Yes?”
“Let me handle Ashly and her friends,” Megan said, then smiled, nicely.
“Don’t try to fight them,” Shanea said. “Christel doesn’t like fighting.”
“I’m sure it won’t get that far,” Megan replied. “Leave it to me.” She looked at the strip of cloth, then folded in an edge and wrapped it around her top again. “What do you think?”
“Narrower.”
“It will be when I’m done.” Megan sighed. She measured where it met in the front and then cut it off with some extra cloth in case she messed it up. Then she folded over one edge, which immediately unfolded.
“Pins,” Shanea said, handing her a handful. “Fold the edges and then pin them.”
“This is a pain,” Megan snapped.
“It passes the time.” Shanea shrugged. “There’s sewing, talking, bathing and playing board games. Except when Paul is here.”
“And then there’s getting raped,” Megan said, darkly.
“It’s really not that bad,” Shanea said. “Really. There’s nothing you can do to stop it, so just have as much fun as you can. Think of your boyfriend or something. Or girlfriend if you go that way.”
“Which is it for you?” Megan asked.
“Oh, I dunno,” Shanea smiled. “I think for fun, guys. For comfort, mostly girls.”
“And the only ‘guy’ is Paul,” Megan said.
“Yep.”
“What’s he like?” Megan asked, almost against her will. She told herself she was just gathering information about the enemy, but she knew she was lying. If she was going to spend the rest of her life “servicing” some guy, it made sense to recon the territory as well as possible.
“Not too big, thank goodness,” Shanea said with a shrug. “I kind of have to clamp down on him. Too quick. He really seems to think it’s just a duty.”
“Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am.” Megan said, thinking that if it was “just a duty” a test tube and artificial insemination would work as well. Although, somewhere, she’d heard the term “live cover” which supposedly worked better. She shuddered at the thought. I’m a brood mare.
“Yep. ‘Oops, I gotta go now.’ And he switches around, too. I haven’t been with him in… a while. I mean, I don’t know how long. No way to tell time in here.”
“Does he just… arrive, do one of the girls and then leave?”
“Usually. Sometimes he stays for a while talking and then chooses another.”
“Just one of his myriad ‘duties,’ ” Megan snorted.
“I guess. And he’s looking worse and worse, too.”
“What do you mean?” Megan had gotten the edges pinned and took up one of the fine needles. Shanea had insisted on little needles for the silk and Megan found herself squinting at the hole, trying to get the incredibly fine thread to fit the even finer hole in
the needle.
“Well you saw him,” Shanea said. She was apparently working on one breast piece of a bra and her movements were far defter than Megan’s.
“He looked old and worn out,” Megan said. “From the little I saw. But I thought that was a disguise?”
“The old might be,” Shanea said, picking up one of the needles and trying to thread it as well. After only a few tries she got the thread through. “Try licking it.”
“What?” Megan said, aghast at the apparent non sequitur.
“The thread, silly,” Shanea said with a grin. “Try licking it. It makes the end a little smaller, it slides in better and it stays… firmer.” She grinned again.
“Harem humor,” Megan snorted. “Great.” She tried licking the thread though and it was easier. It still seemed to take her forever to get it though the needle.
“See? Lick it and it goes in easier,” Shanea grinned.
“Shanea?”
“Yeah?”
“Once is funny; twice is annoying.”
“Okay.”
“You were saying Paul is looking worse?” Megan said after an overlong silence.
“Yeah,” Shanea replied after a moment. “He just keeps getting thinner and weaker-looking. Like he’s sick or something.”
“Or wondering if destroying the world is a really good idea?” Megan muttered.
“No. He’s really worried about people, though,” Shanea said. “It’s really all he talks about, how hard it is for the people.”
“Maybe he should have thought about that before he tried to overthrow the Council,” Megan replied quietly.
“Well if Sheida hadn’t fought back…” Shanea said, hotly.
“Shanea, let’s not argue about that, okay?” Megan smiled. “You’re the closest thing that I’ve got to a friend in here. I won’t say anything else bad about Paul, okay?”
“Okay,” Shanea replied, shrugging. “I mean, I wish it hadn’t happened, too. But if Sheida had just seen what he was trying to do…”
“I’m sure she did,” Megan said, as placatingly as she could. “But, really, let’s not argue about it, okay? We can’t do anything about it. And, you’re right, Paul is probably a nice guy. I’m sure we’ll get along fine.”
“Well, he is a nice person,” Shanea said. “He’s been very nice to us.”
“Of course,” Megan replied. He gets sex whenever he wants it and all he has to do is give us some board games and cloth. Great guy.
“Dinner time,” Christel announced, as she opened up her door.
“I’m not really hungry, yet,” Megan whispered.
“Eat it while you can get it,” Shanea replied. “Three meals a day, none in between.”
“What about the sewing?”
“We’ll just leave it here,” Shanea said, standing up and touching Amber on the arm. “Ami, time for dinner.”
“Dinner,” Amber replied, standing up and walking towards the dining room. She had a graceful stride and, again, Megan had to wonder what she had been like before.
“Settling in?” Christel asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” Megan said, trying to imitate Shanea’s bright vacuousness.
“Have you ever sewn before?” Christel asked, stooping and picking up the pieces of fabric.
“No, ma’am, but Shanea is showing me how,” Megan said, gritting out a smile.
“What is this?” Christel picked among the fabric, looking at the way it had been pinned. “This isn’t a shirt or something, is it?”
“No, ma’am,” Megan said.
“It’s more of a breast-band,” Shanea interjected. “It’s going to be quite fetching, really. I hadn’t thought of it, but I think Paul will like it.”
“And a short skirt,” Megan continued. “Very short.”
“We’ll see,” Christel looked at the other girls who had paused to see if the new girl was going to get a tongue-lashing. “Get into the dining room!” She tossed the fabric on the pillow and put her hands on her hips. “We’re here to make Paul happy. We make Paul happy by being pretty. Anything that is not pretty doesn’t get worn in here. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Megan said as Shanea nodded her head. “I’ll do the best I can.”
“Now, go eat,” Christel said, pointing. “And don’t overeat; half the girls are starting to look like balloons.”
* * *
When they reached the table the only spaces were at the far end. The food was brought through the door to the kitchens and then served to Christel first who passed bowls down the table. By the time they got to Megan, Shanea and Amber, who had somehow been driven to their end, there was very little left. The meal was the same that she had been served before, roast pork, broccoli and potatoes. The only pieces of pork left were ends and gristly bits, the broccoli was all gone and there was only a smidgen of potato.
Megan didn’t mind, she wasn’t particularly hungry, and she gave her servings to Shanea and Amber. But she noticed that several of the other girls had taken huge servings and then eaten barely half of them; as if they were trying to starve the girls at the bottom of the pecking order.
“Who’s the skinny brunette by Ashly?” Megan asked, pointing with her chin at a thin-faced brunette who had started to become one of the “balloons” Christel had mentioned. She was sitting next to Ashly and wolfing down a huge plate of food, even though Megan hadn’t noticed her doing anything in the afternoon but sit watching Ashly play backgammon.
“That’s Karie, Karie Szymonic,” Shanea whispered. “She likes to start stuff and then Ashly and the others join in.”
Christel was at the head of the table working on a much smaller portion and taking delicate bites. On her right was Ashly and then Karie, across from them was a delicate, birdlike, redhead, who had also taken a small serving. Megan had noticed her earlier doing sewing in the corner.
“The redhead?”
Shanea leaned out to look down the table.
“Oh, that’s Mirta. She’s okay and Ashly doesn’t pick on her because she does the most beautiful needlework. If you want anything nice, you ask Mirta. But she’ll want something in return.”
“And, unfortunately, I don’t have anything to trade,” Megan snorted.
“You’ll find something,” Shanea said.
“When can I stand up and leave?” Megan asked.
“Not until Christel,” Shanea replied.
Megan continued to observe the other girls covertly. She caught one absolutely poisonous look from Karie, for no reason she could determine. Ashly seemed to be ignoring her so far. She knew from what her father told her that she should try to establish dominance, but the time didn’t seem right. And if she made too many waves there was Christel with the threat of the neural whip. And mind-wipe on the other side of that. Neither thought pleased.
For some reason, her mind kept coming back to the scissors in the store room. Chaining them there was probably to keep the girls from using them on each other. The tiny cloth cutters would be almost useless as weapons, even in a catfight. She doubted that the scissors were secured to defend Paul; he had to have a personal protection field on at almost all times.
Almost. There’s one time when a PPF had to come down, and that was during sex; any personal intimacy, really.
Interesting.
But he’d be able to summon it almost instantly. And practically any damage a person could inflict by hand could be repaired by medical nannites.
Almost, again. Her father had not talked a lot about his investigations but sometimes she was able to pry information out of him. Sometimes she had wished she hadn’t, one time…
She was about… fourteen. He had been… mean to her for nearly a week. He’d been pressing her, hard, about her boyfriends and what she had been doing with them. Usually he was more than willing to let her do her own thing. As he put it: “I gave you the skills to live your own life and I can’t be there all the time. I have to trust you.”
But he’d been�
�� pressing her. He’d gone into what she called “Full Inspector Mode.” Who was she hanging out with, were they having sex, what were they like, how old were they, how did they act, how did they treat her? Finally she’d lost her temper with him and told him to mind his own business. And it came out.
There was a predator who had been stalking little girls. Most of them just postpubescent, as she was at the time. He’d sweet-talk them into a little cuddling, not sex, oh no. Then when their shields were down he would hurt them, confuse them, teleport them out to somewhere and keep hurting them, continuously, never letting them get a moment to even think about summoning shields. He’d rape them while he hurt them and then usually kill them. He’d made a mistake with one, finally, and she’d had just enough presence of mind to call her shields and teleport out so they finally understood what had been happening.
He’d gone into some pretty graphic detail, probably to convince her of the seriousness of the threat. She hadn’t liked it at the time and didn’t really like thinking about it now. But that was the answer. But if she managed to kill Paul, really kill him, brain dead fully, against the fight of his nannites, what would she do then? And how to do it, how to hurt him that badly?
She realized that while she had been dreaming Christel had gotten up without a word and left. Most of the other girls were getting to their feet and filing out as well.
“What about the plates and stuff?” she asked Shanea, who was getting up and taking Amber’s arm.
“The servants clear them,” Shanea said. “Come on, Ami.”
“That’s silly,” Megan replied, taking Amber’s other arm and pulling the girl, who was still eating in very small, fine bites, to her feet. “Why don’t we clear?”
“Because we can’t go in the kitchen,” Shanea replied. “You can’t pass through the door and it zaps you if you try.”
“Oh.” So much for that way out.
CHAPTER THREE
