“Listen, he may be nice but he’s not doing you any favors refusing to breed you,” Claudette lectured. “Sooner or later you’re going to get pulled into the Breeding and Conception Center for another womb check. And if they find that you’re not pregnant and that you don’t even have any signs of male seed inside you, you’re going to be in deep trouble!”
“Well excuse me for not wanting to get raped!” Penny cried.
“Shhh!” Claudette hissed angrily. She looked all around them, but there was no one in sight. “Look, I’m just trying to warn you. You’re already in trouble. I mean, you think you got the Marketplace as your job assignment by some random choice? This is a punishment assignment, Penny!”
“What? How can that be?” Penny frowned. “What’s so bad about baking and selling bread all day? I’ve always wanted to learn how to make sourdough.”
“Think about it—it’s not just about baking and selling—it’s about being out in the open where any man who wants to can grab you during a Public Mandatory Breeding!” Claudette exclaimed.
“They can?” Penny was horrified. “But I thought only your Forever Mate was supposed to do that!”
“Except during a Public Breeding,” Claudette emphasized. “The Glorious Leader likes to shake things up. Also, the Public Breedings are how he keeps the male breeders from getting bored with the Forever Mate he assigned them. Even if the relationship gets stale, they always know that pretty soon, they’ll have a chance to try some fresh meat. And—listen to me Penny—right now, you are on the chopping block!”
Penny felt cold all over. She crossed her arms over her leaking breasts and shivered.
“You don’t think they’ll have one today, do you? A Public Breeding, I mean?” she asked, barely forcing the words out.
“Who knows?” Claudette shrugged. “They did a lot of them in the week before the Unification Ceremony so they might hold off for a while. The only time you can be sure there’s going to be one is when they bring a fresh crop of breeders in they captured from Hell’s Gate. The Glorious Leader always likes to show off for the new breeders—let them know what’s in store for them.”
“But…I don’t want some stranger grabbing me and…and…” But Penny couldn’t go on.
“Then you’ve got to straighten up, like I said,” Claudette said, frowning. “Start acting like you belong here. Conform, Penny. And that means that tonight you go back to your Love Hut and get that big, scary-looking Forever Mate of yours to breed you properly and suck the nectar out of your breasts. If you start acting like a good little breeder, you might get transferred out of the Marketplace before the next Public Breeding.”
“But…what if I don’t get transferred?” Penny asked, her throat tight.
Claudette shrugged.
“Then you’ve got to just grin and bear it. I worked at the Marketplace for a time, when I first came here,” she added, a bitter look passing over her face. “I went through seventeen Public Breedings. Seventeen. And sometimes as soon as one male was finished with me another would take his place. And then another and another…” She shook her head and looked at Penny. “I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, but there’s nothing you can do about it.”
“Nothing at all? What if you hide?” Penny protested.
Claudette shook her head.
“If they catch you hiding or running away when a male grabs you, you’re automatically recycled—resisting during a Public Breeding is the surest way to prove you’re not really hypnotized.”
“It is?” Penny whispered, putting a hand to her throat.
Claudette nodded.
“You’ll see what I mean if you see one—the minute the call goes out over the speakercons, all the female breeders come out of their shops and stalls specifically to make themselves available to the males. And believe me, the males come from all over, straight to the Marketplace the minute they hear the call,” she added grimly. “So if the Glorious Leader calls for a Public Breeding while you’re working in the bread stall, you’ve just got to take it.”
Penny honestly didn’t know if she could submit to letting some strange man—or men—rape her. Not even to save her own life.
“I might rather be recycled,” she whispered, not sure if she was talking to herself or to Claudette. “I might rather die than let…let that happen.”
“I thought that too, at first,” her friend said grimly. “But you’d be amazed how strong the will to survive is. You find you’ll do anything—endure anything—just to keep drawing your next breath.” She shook her head. “Sometimes I don’t understand it myself.”
“I still want to get out of here,” Penny told her in a low voice. “I think I might really have a chance. Do…do you want to try and come with me?”
She didn’t know what V’rex would say about having another person along on their escape but she couldn’t just leave Claudette here. The poor woman had been through so much trauma—she deserved a chance to get away.
But Claudette only sighed and shook her head.
“Always so hopeful. I wish I could share that hope with you, Penny, but I’m afraid you’ll just end up getting yourself recycled. Still, I wish the best for you. Here.”
She pulled something out of one of the pockets on the sides of her toga and pressed them into Penny’s hand. Penny looked down and saw two little squares of white, puffy material in her palm.
“Gauze?” she asked, looking up at Claudette.
“Super absorbent bandaging—we use it in the Breeding and Conception Center during surgical procedures,” Claudette corrected her. “You’re lucky I happened to have some with me. You can stick those squares to your nipples and they should be absorbent enough to soak up whatever nectar you leak today. But they’re only good for one use,” she added as Penny slipped the square white patches down the front of her toga and positioned them over her nipples—where they stuck to the sticky nectar. “So be sure you get your breasts drained tonight by your new husband.”
“Um…okay.” Penny nodded reluctantly. She still didn’t see how she could ask V’rex to suck the nectar out of her breasts. Just the idea made her cringe inside with mortification.
Claudette seemed to sense her hesitation.
“Do it!” she commanded, glaring fiercely at Penny. “Look—I don’t have any other friends here,” she added awkwardly. “I…I don’t want to lose you. So please, Penny—take care of yourself.”
Touched, Penny smiled at the other woman.
“I will,” she promised, though she still wasn’t sure how to broach the subject with V’rex.
“And have him breed you, too. It’s the only way to stay safe around here,” Claudette lectured. “You have to get pregnant regularly to avoid recycling.”
That was even less likely to happen, Penny thought, her cheeks getting hot with embarrassment. V’rex had promised not to rape her and she was glad he had.
“Here—I got you these.” Claudette reached in her other pocket and pulled out a handful of something Penny recognized.
“Oh—flavor sticks!” she exclaimed, taking them gladly from her friend. “Thank you, Claudette!”
“I know how much you like them.” The other woman shrugged stiffly. “And you can’t really get them outside the Breeding Center so…” She trailed off, shrugging again.
Impulsively, Penny leaned over and gave her a hug.
“Thank you,” she whispered into Claudette’s ear as the other woman hugged her back awkwardly. “You’re a wonderful friend. Thank you for warning me—I promise I’ll do a better job pretending to be hypnotized.”
“Well, you can start right now by being super excited to bake and sell bread,” Claudette lectured as they broke apart. “Remember you’re happy to get your job assignment and you can’t wait to start.”
“Right!” Penny pasted a bright smile on her face and nodded. “Okay, let’s go.”
“Let’s go,” Claudette echoed and they headed for the Marketplace.
Forty-Five
There was a garment stall where the red and blue togas were sold—well, not really sold, as Claudette explained. Every week each breeder couple was issued coupons which were good for spending at the Marketplace. Some were for clothes or household implements, but most were for food and other necessities.
Besides the garment stall, there was a store that sold pots and pans—all made at a factory here in the Compound, and further on, a store that sold dishes and bowls and cups. Apparently there was a pottery studio in the Compound too, so everything was hand-thrown and baked in a kiln. Penny wondered why she couldn’t have been assigned there—she had always wanted to take a pottery class and had just never gotten around to it.
On the other side of the neat main street were the food stalls and stores. There was one for the fruits and vegetables, which were all grown right here in the Compound, another for milk, butter, eggs, and cheese—all made in the dairy and collected from the hatching pens where domesticated tongus and chuckas were kept.
There was also a butcher stall, which made Penny shudder. Huge slabs of suspect-looking meat were stored in refrigerated cases right out front. Fat, shiny d’zeez flies buzzed over the offal to one side of the chopping block where a butcher was working on what looked an awful lot like a human thigh to Penny.
Then she saw who the butcher was—it was Skrug, Shurla’s new husband. He looked up at Penny and grinned his snaggle-toothed grin as he chopped the thigh in half with one blow of the giant cleaver he held in one clawed hand.
“Well, hello there, pretty little one!” he growled, waving the bloody cleaver at her by way of a greeting. “If it isn’t my ‘second bride’—the one V’rex almost gave up to me by refusing to brand her!”
“What are you talking about?” Penny demanded, stepping closer to the butcher’s stall. “He branded me at the Unification Ceremony—everybody saw it.”
“Yes he did, though not properly.” Skrug frowned. “But he didn’t want to—no he didn’t! Put up such a fuss about it when our Glorious Leader was explaining how things would go before we started that he nearly lost you as his bride. The Shining Star was actually going to give you to me, you know.” He leered meaningfully at Penny. “Until V’rex finally agreed to do the deed.”
“He was?” Penny remembered how upset the big Hybrid had been about having branded her and how insistent he’d been about healing her. Clearly Kat and Commander Sylvan had been at least partially wrong about him—he didn’t want to hurt women like a full-blooded Kru’ell One.
“Oh yes, the Glorious Leader was this close to giving you over to me.” Skrug poked a bloody thumb in his own aproned chest, which was already smeared with red and brown stains. “Pity he didn’t. Old Skrug would have treated you right, so I would! Just ask Shurla—I made her almost too sore to walk last night and I’ll do it again tonight!” He laughed uproariously, then leaned over the counter to stare at Penny lasciviously. “I can breed you too, pretty one, if V’rex isn’t doing you right. You just say the word and I’ll come around this counter and give it to you right proper!”
The thought of being bred by the huge, blue-skinned, hunchbacked, snaggletoothed alien made Penny want to vomit. Beneath his butcher’s apron she could see his massive equipment swinging, like one of the fat sausages dangling from the ceiling of his shop.
“No thank you,” she said, stepping away from him. “I…I have to get to my job.”
“Oh? And where’s that?” Skrug looked interested.
“None of your business,” Claudette, who had been standing silently by until now, snapped. “Come on, Penny.”
She grabbed Penny by the arm and dragged her down to the next stall, which happened to be the bakery.
“This is it?” Penny hissed in her ear. “Right beside the butcher’s shop?”
“Can’t be helped,” Claudette muttered back. “Now put on a smile, Penny and remember to act the part.”
Penny knew there was no other choice. Pasting a big grin on her face, she walked through the outside area of the bakery, where stacks of fresh loaves of a dusky pale purple color were on display, and into the back of the shop.
It was much darker in the inside of the shop and at least fifteen degrees hotter. As soon as her eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, Penny saw why. There were several huge brick ovens all ranged along the back wall and all of them appeared to be running simultaneously. Their glowing interiors looked like traditional pizza ovens to Penny and loaves of bread were being shoveled in and out of them constantly by the many workers.
Lined up along the other two walls were tables with plenty of busy women. Some were mixing huge vats of flour and water and yeast with vast wooden paddles while others were kneading and pounding the dough. The fresh dough and the baking bread perfumed the air with a delicious, yeasty scent that Penny inhaled deeply.
“There’s your supervisor,” Claudette said to her in a low voice. She nodded at a NeverBreeder who was whacking and yanking roughly at an enormous mound of bread dough, as though it had done something to personally displease her.
“It is?” Penny looked at the stern-looking NeverBreeder uncertainly.
“Uh-huh. That’s Head Baker Goone.” Claudette’s voice sounded grim. “You need to stay on the right side of her if you don’t want to be recycled, so be respectful. Come on.”
She led Penny down the rows of tables until they reached the little orange supervisor who had surprisingly big muscles in her short arms—probably from pounding the dough like she was. Her biceps bulged like someone had shoved two naval oranges into an orange sock.
It seemed strange to assign sexes to the NeverBreeders and it wasn’t exactly accurate, but some of them just seemed more female or more male. Maybe it was a manifestation of the sex they would have been if they hadn’t been taken as three-month-old fetuses and dunked in the chemical baths that robbed them of their sex and their reproductive ability and turned them into orange mutants, Penny thought.
At any rate, Head Baker Goone certainly put out an angry kind of female energy as she pounded the helpless dough. Penny hoped as they stepped up to her table that she could, as Claudette had put it, get on her “good side.”
If she even has one, she thought, studying the scowl on the NeverBreeder’s orange face.
“Ahem…” Claudette cleared her throat loudly to be heard over the sounds of the ovens and the clanging bowls and women pounding and mixing dough. “Head Baker Goone, this is your new worker. Her name is—”
“Don’t care what her name is,” the NeverBreeder announced, turning to face them, though she never stopped kneading the huge mound of dough. “I don’t need another worker. Send her to the butcher’s next door—they need another. Head Butcher Loone was just telling me so the other day.”
“Oh no!” Penny gasped, before she could stop herself. “No, please don’t send me there! I—”
She stopped speaking abruptly at a hard nudge in the back from Claudette.
“What did you say?” The NeverBreeder supervisor turned to glare at Penny more fully and this time she actually stopped kneading for an instant.
“I said, uh…” Penny cleared her throat, trying desperately to think how to salvage the situation. “I’ve always wanted to work in a bakery,” she said, trying to smile at the NeverBreeder appealingly. “It’s always been my dream. I loved baking back home. Why, my brownies were legendary and my sourdough bread starter was…well, all the girls in my circle asked me for some of it,” she went on, improvising as she went.
She was also lying her head off. Though she was a reasonably good cook, she’d never been much good at baked goods. Her brownies came out like miniature bricks and her one attempt at bread could have been used as a doorstop. Still, she couldn’t end up at the butcher’s shop with Skrug hovering over her all day�
�she simply couldn’t.
“So you can imagine how excited I was when I found out my job was to work here,” she went on, hoping like hell that the NeverBreeder supervisor was buying all this. “I mean, baking was only my hobby back home, but here at the Compound, I was going to get to do it for a living! I mean, I was just so filled with joy to find out—”
“You’re filled with shit, is what you’re filled with, Missy.” Head Baker Goone glared at her. “I don’t b’leieve you’ve ever baked a loaf in your life, no I don’t!”
She tore off a huge gob of dough and slapped it back down on the metal table with a hollow splat as though to prove her point.
“Nevertheless, the job assignments are handed down from our Glorious Leader himself,” Claudette said sternly, glaring down at the NeverBreeder. “And I don’t think he’d be very pleased if he heard you turned down one of the workers he chose especially for you, Head Baker Goone.”
“What do you know about our Glorious Leader?” the NeverBreeder scoffed, glaring at Claudette. “You don’t work at the Big House, Missy—I know you don’t! Still…” She glanced back at Penny dubiously. “I’ll give you a try. Make a mistake, though, and it’s off to the butcher’s shop you go. They’re just beside us and I can send you over there quick as a wink.”
“All right.” Penny bowed her head humbly, her heart banging against her ribs. At least she had a chance—if a very slim one—to stay in the bakery. “Thank you, Head Baker Goone,” she added, still hoping to get on the NeverBreeder’s good side—though she was seriously beginning to doubt she had one.
“You’re not welcome,” Head Baker Goone snapped. “May’bell!” she suddenly bawled at the top of her lungs. “Maaaay’beeeeell!”
She sounded like someone calling the cows to come home, Penny thought as she winced at the deafening shout. For a NeverBreeder, the little baker certainly had a deep voice. It echoed through the busy bakery and cut through the clanging and banging effortlessly.
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