The man nodded. “I’m Mimses. Not my real name, of course, but it’ll do.”
“What is your real name?” Mildred asked.
His eyes narrowed for a moment. “Stockbridge. Mean anything to you?”
“No.”
“Thought not. I was a nothing as Stockbridge. A goddamn Farer. Not worth a rat’s fart in a hurricane. Mimses is a different story altogether.”
Mildred said nothing, standing and waiting silently.
“You’re a pretty woman, you know that?” Mimses stated. “Kind of stocky, but I like that. Built for strength and breeding.”
Mildred didn’t respond. She remained silent, fear beginning to grow within her.
“Lovely and a real brown,” Mimses continued. His right hand stole beneath the hem of his tunic and moved slowly, back and forth, fondling himself. “Yeah, a real lovely brown.”
Her rising fear was suddenly outstripped by a rush of anger. “Stop it, you goddamn pervert.”
Mimses stared at her in surprise for a long moment, then threw back his head and laughed. He withdrew his hand and pushed himself to his feet. “I haven’t gotten going yet, Mildred.”
Staring at the man as if she were a disinterested observer, Mildred vaguely realized she was disassociating. She noted a brief metallic gleam beneath his tunic. She watched him step off the platform, smile at her, then draw back his right hand. It swung around in a swift arc to connect with her face.
The open-handed slap was stinging, shocking. She stumbled back a pace, rage flaring bright and hot within her. Mildred knew the psychology behind Mimses’s display—it wasn’t about sex at all, but about control and power. She had only two options at the moment. For the sake of her pride, she could plant her foot where Mimses’s hand had been a few moments before, but she would probably die—or end up wishing she had. He would probably enjoy her physical assault so he could indulge his sadistic impulses in either torturing or killing her.
Or she could feign humility and fear.
Mildred brought her hand up to her face. “Please…I’ll do what you want.” She forced a few tears to her eyes, wetting her lashes and spilling down her cheeks.
Mimses beamed at her. “Of course you will, brown sugar.” The grin twisted into a fierce glower. “You better not give me any more of this ‘pervert’ bullshit, or I’ll rip your bowels out and make you feed them to the work gangs. I decide what’s perverted around here and what’s not. Understand me?”
Mildred nodded meekly. “Yes, sir.”
Mimses smirked, as if pleased to be called sir without having expressly ordered it. “Where did you and your friends come from? Where’d you get your blasters?”
“They’re not really my friends,” Mildred said. “They had weapons when I joined up with them about a month ago. They kind of just forced me to fall in with them. You know how it is with scavengers, living off the land.”
She managed to squeeze out a few more tears. “We came across the Barrens. We almost died, all of us.”
Mimses regarded her silently for a long moment, then he pounded his right fist hard into Mildred’s bare midriff. She folded over his arm, lungs emptying of air with an agonized woof. She was only dimly aware of falling to the cold, slick floor. Mimses nudged her with a foot while she gasped and gagged.
“You’re fucking lying to me, brown sugar,” he said in a low croon. “You were in Fort Fubar and killed my Incarnates to get their chariot. Do you have any idea how hard it is to train new recruits?”
The man’s voice grew shrill with outrage. “You and your scavenger friends chilled the cream of the cream. It took three years to train them, and you left them to lie like so much vulture’s meat! Worse, you did it in front of the citizens. You’ve handed me a real—what’s the old term?—public-relations nightmare.”
Mimses stopped prodding her. He kicked her hard on her left thigh. She had no breath to cry out. Snarling, he continued, “You were in Pharaoh’s tomb, too. I ought to toss you into the Incarnates’ barracks so they can have a little fun with you, and if there’s anything left of your lovely hide, I’ll strip it off an inch at a time…make myself a new pair of sandals with it.”