As he said it he put the control unit back in its satchel.
I held back my victory cheer.
“You’re not going to get what you want either.”
He made a snide smile.
“You don’t think so?”
“No.
Lord Elentinus is going to read the letter before it goes to Pakpo.
He told you to help me with formatting.
You think he’s not going to be able to tell if you wrote the whole thing?”
Whore grumbled and turned away.
He had that rude hand up to silence me, but I kept going.
I felt emboldened since I’d called his bluff on the shock collar.
“You’re going to have an influence on what I write—I accept that, but if you just write the whole thing in your normal obnoxious tone he’s going to know it.
It has to at least look like something I might have written.”
Whore crumpled the top half of his body over the table.
His groan was so loud it echoed against the walls.
“This is going to take forever!
You don’t deserve to take up my time like this.
I’m not some bored housewife looking for busy work.
I have a million things to do.”
“So go do them.
I see the formatting I need here in your letter.
I’ll write my own version on the wall, and I’ll get you when I’m done.
We’ll go over it together and compromise on changes.”
He lifted his head to sneer at me.
“I’m not going to compromise with you.”
“Then you’re the childish one.
Not me.”
This made him laugh cruelly.
“You actually think I’m beholden to you.
My dear, you are not my equal.
You.
Are.
A
slave.
”
Excuse me?
He was grasping at straws to find ways to knock me down.
I felt like this was one argument I could easily win.
The more I argued, though, the more he gained the upper hand.
He was like an internet troll, thriving on conflict.
I could never win an argument with him.
I’d just be diverted from my goal of writing the letter, which, of course, was his whole point.
“I will drag my poor husband into our drama if you don’t compromise.”
I hated the idea, but his bullshit needed a cork shoved in it right from the start.
This was too important.
His eyes narrowed.
“You really want me for an enemy, Maritza?”
“You already are my enemy!”
“No.
I am the loyal servant of my master.
I see what love and the satisfaction of sex may cause him to overlook.
I act in his interests only.”
I couldn’t resist this time.
I grabbed the tablet and scrolled to a particular section of his letter.
“How is asking human women to pay a penance the way
your
race did serving Elentinus?
This whole letter just focuses on your personal issues.
None of that should apply to us.
We aren’t a subservient race trying to climb up out of the ghetto.
We’re the only hope the Dak-Hiliah have to avoid extinction.
It’s in your best interest to keep us from being—”
Whore slapped me.
I sat in stunned silence with my face turned the way his hand had pushed it.
My cheek felt like it was on fire.
My heart thumped so loud I couldn’t hear anything else.
I was still too stunned to move.
My eyeballs went back to Whore though.
He was facing forward gripping the conference table with both hands.
“M…Maritza.”
I slowly turned my head toward him.
I heard him swallow.
“I…apologize.”
The shock went away and after it came fear.
It was a powerful slap.
I was reminded how vulnerable I was against a big strong Dak-Hiliah man.
I started to feel like I had ice in the pit of my stomach.
Once I could move again I slid to a chair further away from him.
My legs trembled as I forced myself to climb over.
It felt like a rabid dog was next to me.
The side of my body closest to him got hot.
I needed to get out of his reach.
Whore put his face in his hand.
The fact that he seemed to regret what he’d done gave me a twinge of hope.
“First you…you disregarded Lord Elentinus’ title…then you spoke of my people and what we endured in such a flippant manner.
I lost control.
It was wrong for me to strike you.
I…I won’t hit you again.
Understood?”
I forced a weak nod.
My throat felt too tight to speak through.
“I’ll compromise with you on the letter.”
A trickle of blood ran down my chin.
I touched my lip and then looked at the blood on my fingers.
Whore grounded his teeth and swore loudly.
He got up.
“We need to erase your injuries in the infirmary.
Come with me.”
I stayed seated.
“I want Lord Elentinus to—“
“You witch!
After I agreed to compromise with you?”
I curled into myself.
“I…won’t…put up with you hitting me.”
“I said it wouldn’t happen again!
It was a trifle, anyway.
Most brides get beaten far worse for lessor infractions.”
And then, like a truly pathetic weak woman, I started to cry.
Of course I wanted to be strong.
Of course I wanted to tell Whore off and just race off to show Elentinus right then and there.
But what’s the truth?
I was scared and dejected.
The one line the asshole hadn’t crossed had just been broken to bits.
If he did it once he could do it again.
I would never be able to stand up to him without that fear.
Violence makes a man the winner in every argument with a woman.
I sobbed.
Fuck my life.
Whore sat back down and rested his face in his hands.
“By the gods…”
He started rubbing his fingers through his hair.
“Damn it!
Damn it!
Damn it!”
I sniffled and looked at him.
The idiot was panicking.
Good.
He leaned back and took a breath deep enough to make his chest puff up.
Then he blew it out across the table.
“I’ll let you write what you want to write,
within reason
, if you’ll just go to the damn infirmary with me!”
I wiped my lip and my nose on the side of my hand.
I knew I had to take the offer.
Even if I was entitled to selfishly seek protection, I had to help those other women out there who were ‘beaten far worse for lessor infractions.’
“Okay,” I said with a voice choked by emotion, “I’ll go.”
He wouldn’t look into my eyes.
“You won’t tell Lord Elentinus I slapped you?”
What are you worried about?
I’m just a slave, remember?
“If you let me write a decent letter, then I won’t tell him.
It…it would just stress him out even more right now.”
I paused for another sniffle.
“But if you ever,
ever
touch me again—I’m going to him with the marks.
And I’ll tell him about this time, too!
I swear I will, Hor-Denay.
This is your one and only chance.”
I broke into tears again but kept going through my sobs.
“You don’t deserve it.”
He gave a sheepish Dak-Hiliah nod without turning toward me.
“Master,” Kang said in the Dak-Hiliah language, “May I take Mistress Maritza to the infirmary and see to her injury for you?”
I blinked at him through my tears.
Whore stood.
“See to it at once.”
He strode for the door.
“I’ll look at what you wrote at the end of the day.”
He left.
I clutched Kang’s metal arm thing.
“Thank you.”
“Of course, mistress.”
We walked together.
My legs were shaking so I hung on to him.
“I’m sorry I was a bitch to you, you know, back then.”
“There’s no need to apologize, mistress.”
I hugged my body against him.
***
Once I’d been healed I had Kang get me something cold to drink to sooth my raw throat.
(It tasted like peanut butter milk).
I read the tablet with Whore’s letter a second time to figure out the formatting.
The salutation was impossible to translate into English.
It was something like, ‘There is no suitable salutation that would be honorable enough for you, so may I die for even trying,’ but all abbreviated into two symbols.
It seemed archaic the way the word ‘dear’ was in letters in English.
I mean, we don’t actually consider every person we write letter to ‘dear’ to us.
It’s just the customary way to start a letter.
I decided to try to write in the Dak-Hiliah language.
The words were in my head, right?
Maybe the writing was in my fingers.
Well, it wasn’t.
It was really awkward trying to copy the pictogram for the salutation.
It looked scribbly.
I groaned.
But then, right before my eyes, the crappy thing I drew turned into a sleek uniform character.
My brow rose.
The screen recognized my horrible handwriting and turned it into a clean…um…font?
“Wow.”
Okay.
I felt like I could manage now.
I spent half the day organizing and planning and the other half actually writing.
With just a teeny bit of practice I was able to scrawl out the Dak-Hiliah writing without any trouble.
I found myself thinking in this alien language that was so different from English.
If only I could go back to my own time and impress someone.
I’d planned on giving Pakpo a blueprint to use for husband/wife relations, but, as Whore had shown me, I was far too uninformed to write something that ambitious.
I decided instead to tell him what I thought was the ideal situation, which was my experience with Elentinus (minus his asshole servant, of course).
I described how Elentinus had gently coaxed me into my new role, and how I was able to embrace it and find happiness.
I didn’t mention our first time in bed together, but I did allude to the fact that we were ‘breeding.’
I understood that other Dak-Hiliah men had taken wives under horrible old rules and may have done irreparable to their relationships.
However, I closed by saying that the men should strive to make things right as best they can.
If their wives are happy they will be happy too.
I sure felt Elentinus was.