The Slave Read Online Free PDF Page A

send me home....
    Home! How am I supposed to take
care of my apartment? I should have packed more stuff. I should
have given notice. I have to call the super! Robin turned over onto her
belly and leaned her head into her folded arms. Oh God, I am such an idiot. Ken
Mandarin told me to get ready to leave right away―why didn’t I
listen?
    Because you didn’t think you’d
get in, answered the voice inside her. Because you figured that the
Marketplace wouldn’t be interested in you. So you didn’t even warn
them at work, and you didn’t talk to the landlord, and you only
packed up some of your things, leaving days of work that will have
to be done before you can just pick up and leave your life
behind.
    They never talk about what
happens to a person’s life when they just vanish into thin
air , Robin
reflected. They just start the story with the slave arriving at the
master’s house. You never really find out how many people they had
to say goodbye to, or if they just decided to leave everyone they
knew with this mystery.
    I guess there aren’t a lot of
people who really have to know anything, she reflected. People leave jobs for better
jobs all the time. And it’s not like I have loads of personal
friends who are going to miss me. She grimaced at the self-pity that swept
through her, and continued her inventory. The landlord won’t care; all I have
to do is leave my security with them. And if I never attend a
meeting of the WISE Women again, no one will ever know the
difference. But there are a few people who would want to maintain
contact with me, even if I told them I was taking a new job and
moving away... She didn’t want to think about them . How am I supposed to tell my
family? Oh Mom, don’t expect to see me at the holidays this year;
I’m going to be a full-time slave, and slaves don’t get vacation
days.
    Her stomach twisted into a
knot, and she slumped down. This business of creating a reality out of what I
assumed to always be a fantasy is too hard. Of course I didn’t
prepare, and of course I never really tried to think about what to
tell everyone. I might as well have been trying to figure out how
to tell people that I was going to Mars to live with little green
men. At that
moment, she realized that the shower had long since stopped
running. Without thinking, she held herself still, and
listened.
    Rustling and clinking noises, the sounds of
a man getting dressed. Around the corners of the blindfold, she
could tell that the light in the room was artificial. Was it still
very early morning, or did Chris Parker just dislike sunlight? He
walked past her, into the other room, and she heard him open the
outer door. She stopped trying to figure out what he was doing, and
just remained still.
    When he came back, she felt and heard the
bed shift as he sat on the edge. The heavy sliding sound and the
light thump could only mean he was putting his boots on. Robin
decided that she had wasted enough time feigning sleep, so she
raised herself up on one elbow and tilted her chin up.
    “ Good morning, sir,” she
said, her voice slightly cracking. Oh, I need a cup of
coffee , she
thought, clearing her throat. At least they’ll have good coffee here. It’s a
great hotel.
    But there was no response from the man, only
a moment of silence, held suspended as she realized that she had
just done something that was very, very wrong. She tried
desperately to think of what it was. And then Parker was off the
bed, and she heard a sound like a long, ragged whisper, and felt
his strong hand close around her upper arm.
    She yelped, but he merely
pulled her up and halfway out of her wrapping of blankets. Her feet
were caught and tangled, but it didn’t matter, because he pushed
her powerfully against the bed, forcing her head down to the sheets
with one hand, bracing her body against his leg. She barely had
enough time to gasp when he brought his doubled-over belt across
her ass cheeks, hard, with an explosive crack! that