The heavy, musky odor of semen rising into the air...
A shudder jerked my shoulders when Vrateus finally dragged me through the open doors and into my glass room.
“You did good.”
The praise felt worse than a slap on the face would have. His words set off the explosion of rage, humiliation, and disgust inside me.
“Fuck you!” I snapped, shrugging his arm off me.
What was he praising? My performance during that grotesque show of mass masturbation?
Was I supposed to be proud of that?
Centuries of civilization had just been stripped from me. All progress that humanity had made. The respect and equality I had earned because of my own work and the work of the women who had come before me. All of that meant absolutely nothing as tonight, I had been reduced to just a naked body to gawk at and be used for someone else’s slobbering pleasure.
It was easy to hate them all, but it gave no satisfaction of revenge, since the rest of the males couldn’t hear me curse at them.
It was Vrateus who’d had his hands on me. And at him, I directed my anger.
I hated him for ever coming up with this perverted idea. For somehow convincing me to agree to it.
Back in the hall, he had actually given me a choice worth considering. He had offered me a clean, quick death. By choosing to live, I had turned myself from a victim into a willing participant in what had happened.
I despised him for that, too.
But most of all, I was angry that he’d made me like some parts of that horrible experience. Nothing about his actual touch had been revolting.
And I hated him for that the most.
SITTING ON MY SLEEPING pallet, hugging my knees, I couldn’t stop the bouts of shakes that kept running through my body.
I didn’t hear the doors open and close and had no idea when Vrateus had left my room.
When a small cluster of waxy yellow flowers slid into my view, I realized he had come back. Now, he was kneeling beside me, holding the translucent branch covered with tiny blossoms in his hand.
“What’s this?” I gave him a sideway glare.
“Irsen flowers. Chew on them slowly, without swallowing. Their juice will help you fall asleep tonight.” He put the branch into my hand and watched me as I mechanically shoved the entire thing into my mouth.
The bitter-sweet juice thickly coated my tongue when I started chewing. Then a fuzzy haze descended on my mind, warming my chest. My limbs grew heavy, and I sank back into the bedding of my pallet.
“Just this once,” Vrateus murmured, tugging the covers over me.
He tucked me in as the feeling of soaring beyond the lights of the Anomaly swept me into a blissful delusion.
I did not hear when he left again.
I WOKE UP AT THIRTEEN minutes past nine the following morning. I knew the exact time because of the large, metal analogue clock left near my sleeping pallet.
Right away, I dashed to the bathroom to get rid of the nasty, sticky mess of chewed up flowers in my mouth. Spitting it out, I vigorously brushed my teeth, then took a quick cool shower, which brought me back to life.
Last night had drifted away, like nightmares always did in the morning. I had an amazing clarity of mind, and my body buzzed with energy.
Ripping a piece of cloth from one of the dresses on the rack that remained in my room, I wetted it and wiped down my bodysuit and undergarments. The self-cleaning material took care of the rest by absorbing the moisture and dissolving impurities into the air.
Fully dressed, with my hair brushed and put up in a ponytail, I sat down to eat my breakfast. It was a bowl of some grainy matter with the meaty taste of stew. Vrateus must have brought it earlier this morning, as it was still lukewarm.
Escaping this place appeared to be very executable today. Pieces of the plan turned in my head, like a puzzle about to be solved.
I could reasonably assume that my spacesuit had sustained only minimal damage during the crash. I knew the ship’s fuel cells had been designed to fit on the suit, in case of an emergency. Their power would be enough to combat the gravity of a planet many times larger than the solid mass of the Dark Anomaly.
I had to make more accurate calculations, of course. For that I needed to know the