5.

Spock returned to his regular work in the mine after only one day of rest. He felt like an automaton as he pushed the cart in and out of the mine – but he was little more than a living automaton anyway, performing the task that a machine would easily perform if they could use them here. The physical effort of the task at least helped to calm some of the feelings he was experiencing. It was hard to keep a flame of anger burning when one was exhausted.

Lamesh and Andresh accused him of being quiet – which seemed an ironic accusation since he was mute, but he understood what they meant. He had very little enthusiasm for wide hand gestures at the moment. A dull misery seemed to be constantly draped over him despite his efforts to control it. He spent most of his rest time seated on his sleeping mat with his hands folded in his lap, trying to stop the vicious revolutions of his mind as it forced him to relive what had happened over and over.

It was five days before Lord Milaresh returned to the house. Spock had not set foot inside his master's rooms since that night, and no matter how much time he spent trying to persuade himself of the illogic of his emotional reaction, he did not want to. He had been dreading the order to go and make the rooms ready for his lord's return, but at least that had not come to pass. Master Robbesh had let him know that another slave had been sent to clean and order the place after his –

Spock dropped his head, taking in a deep breath. Words were simply words, but it was becoming harder and harder to let that one word, *rape*, run through his mind. Just those four letters, in that particular combination, brought a sickness into his stomach and a mesh of impossible emotions into his mind. He had expected it to become easier with time, but instead it was becoming harder. He knew that every second that passed brought him closer to Milaresh's presence, to the possibility of such a thing happening again.

The seconds that were passing now seemed to resonate in his mind. He had been ordered to his Lord's room. He was walking along the wooden floor of the upper corridor now. He reached the door, and stood outside it for a moment, his hand touching the frame. He did not want to go in...

He had to – he absolutely *had* to – make himself. He moved his hand and rapped lightly on the door, twice to indicate it was the chamber slave and no one else, and then opened the door, and stepped inside.

Lord Milaresh was talking to another man, laughing carelessly at something, and he did not acknowledge Spock's presence. Spock was used to that by now. He took his place by the door, dropped his head, clasped his hands behind his back, and waited.

After some time he realised the conversation had turned to him, although he was still being generally ignored, apart from the perfunctory order to serve *liarn* to the two men.

'Yes, Sarkesh,' Milaresh drawled. 'That's my name for him – God knows what he calls himself.'

'It's a Vulcan,' the other man said. 'That's a rare prize.'

His name was Mavanesh, Spock had gleaned, and he was another mine owner from an estate not far away. He seemed to have the same combination of spoilt, presumptive self-confidence that Milaresh had. The man came across the room, and touched Spock's tapering ears with a careless hand, bending them in a show of examining them.

Spock suppressed reaction. He did not like this man. At least, he did not like his voice – rough and arrogant – and he did not like the thoughts he sensed from him when the man touched him. There seemed to be something about him… Perhaps he was a degree less lazy than Milaresh, and that could only make him more dangerous.

'Yes,' Milaresh said. 'I got him because his looks are pleasing, and I thought he'd be a good worker – and he is – but I didn't expect him to be so damned moral. I guess you heard about that business last week?'

'Oh, that little Lavorian slut,' Mavanesh said with a harsh laugh. 'And the slave stopped you? Hell, men shouldn't bring their families along on business if they want them to stay chaste and protected.' He grasped Spock's chin in his hand, raising his head and turning it from side to side, perhaps examining the bruising that was still evident there. 'I hope you disciplined him?'

Spock stiffened inwardly. He did not dare show any outward sign of his discomfort.

'Oh, yes,' Milaresh laughed. 'Had him flogged – then I saw to it he got some private punishment. By God it felt good fucking him, especially after what he cheated me out of. Hell, one virgin's as good as another.'

'I guess he knows who his master is now, eh?' Mavanesh asked, lifting Spock's chin higher merely to see him submit without resistance.

'Oh, yes,' Milaresh said. 'And I'll keep on letting him know – you see if I don't. That reminds me – I need to put a few marks on his punishment sheet. He damaged my table with his struggling. He learnt pretty quickly there was no point, though.'

The man rose and came across the room, putting himself so close to Spock that he could smell his breath billowing over his face, tainted with alcohol and breath fresheners.

'Look at that,' he said. Spock got the distinct impression that something was being waved before his face. 'He's stone blind, but he can do almost everything I require. He's got so little power of speech he couldn't even make a sound when I fucked him. And he can stand there for hours, without moving, and obey me the instant I speak.'

'Does he do a good rub?' Mavanesh asked curiously, turning his examination to Spock's hands and poking at the almost-healed bruising on his wrists. Spock's instinct was to crush the man's fingers between his own, but he resisted it.

'Massage? Sure,' Milaresh said carelessly. 'That's the beauty of his species – whether or not he enjoys his work, he'll try his damnedest to do a good job. I'll have him do you later, if you like.'

'You don't fancy selling him on, do you?' Mavanesh asked, finally moving away. Milaresh followed him across the room. 'I mean, he must have disappointed you.'

Spock's focus tightened. What would it be like to be moved to a new place, a new master? He felt something approaching hatred toward Milaresh, but perhaps a new master would be worse – especially this one, with that vein of sharp cruelty that he could sense in him. He knew his way around this place, and he had Master Robbesh to protect him to some extent. He had friends.

Of course, it was all immaterial. Whatever Milaresh wished to do with him, he had no choice in the matter.

'Oh, I can't be bothered with breaking in another chamber slave,' Milaresh complained lazily. 'No, I'll have to keep him. He's good at what he does, and he'll be useful when the guest-rooms are empty of lovely ladies. I know that now. I've never known another man quite as - *clean* as him… Something like that, anyway. I can't quite pin it down. He's a pleasure to fuck. He's put on muscle since he's been working for me. And he's *hot*. His body temperature's a good few degrees warmer than ours.'

Despite himself, Spock felt the edges of his mouth tighten. This was the first real suggestion that his fears might become reality. It was possible that that terrible night would be repeated, probably more than once.

'And tonight?' the other man asked curiously. 'Your table was empty tonight, wasn't it?'

There was a long pause. Spock almost bit his lip into his mouth, but he stopped the automatic reaction just in time.

'Robbesh has warned me against it,' Milaresh said in a petulant tone, rubbing his foot on the thick carpet as if to avoid focussing on his guest. 'My highest overseer. He's like an old woman sometimes, really, the way he thinks I should treat the slaves.'

'But you obey the old woman?' Mavanesh said with a derisory laugh.

'I wouldn't want to lose him,' Milaresh said with a moment of unusual honesty. 'He keeps this entire place working smoothly. But anyway, apparently I tore him,' he said, referring to Spock again. 'And I don't want to have to waste money on a doctor if he gets infected.'

Spock relaxed again, for the first time feeling grateful for that tight, stinging pain that he felt every time he moved – and renewing his gratitude towards Master Robbesh a hundredfold.

'You got me here under false pretences, Milaresh,' Mavanesh said airily. 'I come to your estate expecting a good time, and you offer me nothing but some wine, and the sight of a chamber-slave your high overseer forbids you to touch. I want to experience this alien delicacy. What's the point in a slave if you can't have your will with him?'

'Well,' Milaresh said slowly.

There was the clink of his glass, and he drank again. Spock blinked, realising he had lost track of how much his master had drunk. He wouldn't know when to offer a refill, and a mark would be put down against him on the punishment sheet.

'Well,' Milaresh said again. To Spock's relief, he swirled the liquid in his glass, and the Vulcan was aware again of the precise amount he had left. 'You can get a massage from him at any rate. And I'll call up some of the female chamber-slaves, since there are no other guests for them to service. And as for this delicacy,' he said, his voice turning towards Spock, 'we'll just have to see how the evening goes, Mavan. We'll just have to see how the evening goes.'

******

Spock slid into his bed and pulled his blanket up over his body, shivering again with the chill of an overlong shower. It was now almost four months since that first, horrifying attack in Milaresh's room, almost four months since his introduction to Milaresh's close friend Mavanesh, and since the pair of them had begun their regular use of his body for their own amusement. He never quite knew when to expect Milaresh's predations, but he did know the set night each week that Mavanesh visited, when they would spend their lusts together in drunken depravity. He always spent that day trying to marshal his disciplines and reconcile himself to what *must* happen, but it never seemed to make it any easier.

He flexed his hands, still feeling the massage oil from the night's work under his fingernails and in the creases of his palms, and…

He shuddered. He was reaching the point of tolerance of feeling this cold, both in his body and in the core of his soul.

The core of his soul… He almost laughed inside his mind. How illogical such a phrase was, as if the amorphous, dubious entity of the soul had something as solid as a core. He had always felt a certain, dependable solidity at the centre of himself – perhaps the Vulcan disciplines he leant upon, or a knowledge of the strength and abilities of his own body. A dependable solidity, in conflict with that slender part of himself that remembered the childhood taunts, the days and weeks and months when his father seemed to see him as an aberration from the Vulcan norm, the looks of censure from certain of his teachers.

He wasn't sure what had happened to that dependable store of disciplines now. He wasn't even sure what had happened to the insecure, childlike part of himself. It was all being pushed aside by a certain tumour in his mind – by the thought of what had been done to him and what was yet to be done. There was the feeling of the oil on his skin, and the memory of the feelings… The woman, blind and mute like him, who had been tumbled on the bed next to him and pressed up against him. The knowledge of her own self-loathing despite her mute capitulation to whatever the two men, Milaresh and Mavanesh, had done to her. The knowledge of his own mute capitulation to the same treatment…

*He lies there like a corpse*, Mavanesh complained. Frequently he made that complaint. Spock knew that he could not actively resist, so his only defence was complete passivity. Sometimes he was allowed that. Other times Milaresh struck him or threatened him until he came to life. Tonight had been one of those times.

His skin was crawling with remembered sensation. He hugged the blanket closer around himself. And then Delash, wakeful and intuitive as always, moved closer and wrapped his own blanket over them both. Since that first night when Milaresh had beaten and raped him, it had become Delash's standard practice to watch him for signs of chill or unease, and to move silently closer and share his blanket. Spock was certain that Delash had no idea of the worst of his sufferings, and he intended to keep it that way for as long as it continued – but he would not shun his friendship.

'Tough night, eh?' Delash murmured close to his ear, and Spock nodded minutely.

'Guess he's still angry with you then?' Delash asked.

Spock nodded again. Milaresh was always angry with him, for different reasons. This last was for a clumsy mistake in pouring a drink for him at dinner. Spock had caused his master's clothes to be stained in front of twenty guests, including Mavanesh. Milaresh had taken his anger out thoroughly enough on him later.

'He's not making it easy for you?'

Spock shook his head, keeping his eyes closed.

'Well…' Delash laid a hand on his arm, in between the two blankets. 'His anger'll wear off. It does, you know.'

Spock nodded his head silently again. He was well used to the cycles of Milaresh's anger. Often he felt like a dog belonging to a spoilt child – a living thing to be kicked and scolded and shouted at and beaten depending on how his master's mood changed. A dog would not be treated quite as he was though… A dog would not be abused precisely as Milaresh abused him.

'I'll tell you something, Spockesh,' Delash said, moving his mouth closer to Spock's ear, so the Vulcan could feel the moist warmth of his breath against his skin. 'I heard there's Starfleet ships about recently. They're not common about here.'

Spock stiffened, turning his head towards Delash. This enforced disability was infuriating. There were a hundred questions he could ask Delash about the rumour he had just passed on, if only he could articulate them.

He signed quickly, *Who?*

'What, who did I hear it from?' Delash asked. 'Just snippets I've heard from guests and their slaves and servants. Or, which ships? I don't know that. Just Starfleet. Big ones, though. The type that means business.'

Spock closed his eyes. If he had been human he would have put his hands together in prayer.

'We'll do what we can, Spockesh,' Delash promised, touching his arm again. 'It's not like we can put out a signal to them, but if there's any chance to pass on word of you being here, we'll do it.'

He signed, *Thank you*, putting all the gratitude he had into the small sign.

'Oh, don't mention it,' Delash said awkwardly. 'You're as close to us all now as any of us, Spockesh. We'll do all we can for you. You look after your seven. That's how it works.'

Spock lowered his head again to the sleeping mat. Just that small piece of news had made him feel relaxed enough to attempt sleep, and Delash's body against his was keeping him warm, as usual. Here, he was cared for. Outside this room lay all manner of abuses and indignities, but here, at least, would always be six other people who would be eyes for him, and speak for him, and protect him against what few things they could.