Ganzar Chapter four

Chekov lay on his back on a blanket in the shade of a large tree practicing trying knots. He'd moved out of the sun after a while, feeling that Tarell didn't quite understand the concept of sunburns as well as she should. His right ankle was tied to a long piece of rope that was tied around the base of the tree. Nothing to worry about, Tarell had told him, just a reminder.

The thing that bothered Chekov the most about being tied was that it didn't bother him enough. Unless he concentrated on reasons why he should be unhappy, he found he was perfectly content to lie in the sun daydreaming, idly whiling away the time until Tarell summoned him again.

It was no use, though. In this state of post-sexual euphoria, he couldn't maintain self-disgust for very long. The image of himself salivating on cue seemed more humorously apt than repulsive at this moment.

Chekov shielded his eyes from the sunlight glinting through the leaves as he looked up at the tall man standing at the side of the tree shielded from view from the house. "Do I have a choice?"

The ensign re-positioned himself so that he was lying on his stomach facing away from the house. "Why are you here?"

The ensign's reaction to the sudden spasm of pain that pierced the pastel fog in his brain was enough proof enough of this for the Ganzarite.

"In Tarell's office, behind d' back wall is an offworldish t'ing dat tells where you be when you are out of the house."

Chekov sent a quick word of thanks to whatever power that had suddenly decided to smile on him. Knowledge of the location of the surveillance system wasn't exactly a free ticket home, but it was definitively something to hold on to -- one good reason why he shouldn't be content to settle for an early retirement on Ganzar as an alien sex slave. "This... offworldish thing doesn't track individuals inside the house, though?"

Tirst nodded, his admiration clearly grudging. "A few of us has got to it b'fore, but you can't smash it without bells and such going off. We figured that maybe since you're offworldish you can work it."

A broad assumption on their part, but, with reasonable amount of luck, not an inaccurate one. A big technical problem occurred to the ensign. "I suppose this thing is made of metal."

"Oh.. yes, of course," Chekov said feeling a little chagrined. Well, score one for the stone knives and bear skin contingent. "I need to get back to Hikasha..."

"Don' go there. They look for you there first. Go..." Tirst paused then jerked his head in direction of one of the walls beyond them.

As spasm of pain distorted the big man's face, Chekov belatedly realized that the barbarian too had undergone Tarell's cure for wanderlust. "The Nomads, free men, will take you in. Though I don't know if a lil' runt like you could survive d' cold..."

"When I make my...attempt, you'll want to know, correct? You will want to go also?"

"No," the other man replied shortly. "I can never go back. There's no place for me. I've grown too dependant on women. Men wouldn't respect me. Any woman I would take as mine would quickly find out how to rule me. No, I been here too long to leave."

Chekov started to argue with this irrationality, then paused. If gender-based prejudice was as strong among the men as it was here among the women, Tirst might be right. The ensign shook his head. This planet was collectively long overdue for a group appointment with a good psychiatrist. "Is there anything I can do for you in return for this information?"

Remembering what had happened the last time he'd been caught, Chekov had to look away. "I am sorry about what happened yesterday."

"That?" Tirst laughed. "That was nothing next to what they do if they catch you outside these walls. I wanted you to see that you can't hide anything from them. If you're caught, you betray me, then I betray Tivez who told me, then he betrays Tuul who tried a year ago...."

Chekov nodded accepting the implications of the trust being conferred on him. "Death before capture, correct?"

"If possible." Tirst didn't sound too displeased at the prospect. "If not, just try to lie a little better, huh? Cry, beg to be forgiven, beg her to have sex with you and you'll get off lightly. Resist her, try to be brave and you'll end up betraying us all."

Tirst checked the windows again in preparation to departing. "You should try soon. She won't be expecting it out of you now, not after a beating and a night of...."

"There is one thing I know that might interest you," Chekov interrupted hastily. "Tarell has me take yellow pills that supposedly make it possible for me to give her daughters. If the Orions, I mean, the Offworlders, are able to do this for me, they can do it for you as well."

"As an offworlder, I can assure you that they are lying," Chekov replied. "Although I am not sure why they should lie. Perhaps the yellow pills don't work at all-- even on me. Perhaps they're trying to make buying offworlders more attractive to Ganzarite clients. It could even be that the Orions are afraid the widespread use of the drug would give away their presence on Ganzar to the Federation. But they do have the knowledge to solve your and Tarell's problem in conceiving a daughter."

"Good." A hard, cold, calculating smile settled on the Ganzarite's face. Evidently, as with the information he'd bestowed on Chekov, these were facts he could use to an advantage beyond the ensign's appreciation. "Be glad you waited to tell me this, offworlder," he said cheerfully as he crouched to make his exit. "Now, I'm rid of you no matter what happens."

"A member of a Ganzarite faction has made contact with me and claimed to have information about the whereabouts of our men," Kirk informed the security guard as soon as he entered his chambers.

"There's a catch though," Kirk warned him. "Before she gives us the information, she wants us to take certain actions to throw suspicions on her political enemies."

Kirk paused. After last night, he really didn't want to go into the details. "Have you managed to make any friends among the Ganzarites?"

Kirk chewed his lower lip. "Do you feel there might be any women who may be... attracted to you or Davis?"

"No, sir," Johnson answered, again without pausing a second to consider. "No matter what their appearance may be like, Ganzarite women find white-skinned men under six feet tall revolting."

"It seems that pale skin is associated with death, skeletons, extreme old age, illness -- particularly a disease much like leprosy, and fish -- especially dead fish."

"I just keep thinking about Chekov, sir," the security man admitted. "One of the smallest, whitest guys on the ship..."

Kirk nodded. "At the risk of sounding like Mr. Spock, I have to say his abduction does not seem logical."

"He must have stayed close to Ghyka," Johnson theorized. "He must have seen something whoever abducted the commander didn't want him to see."

Kirk nodded again, joylessly recalling the navigator's remarkable propensity to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. "You're thinking that whoever took Ghyka may have killed Chekov?"

"We've had no indications of a hostage situation," Kirk reasoned with a coolness he did not feel. "And maintaining him as a prisoner wouldn't seem to have any benefits."

"Yes, sir." Johnson shook his head slowly. "I'd like to think he's still alive, but I just don't see anything the Ganzarites could be doing with him..."

The first thing that Chekov noticed about the unfamiliar woman in the sitting area of Tarell's spacious office was that she looked almost exactly like the man who knelt beside her. Both of them had cinnamon colored skin, black braided hair, long pointed noses and watery blue eyes that looked slightly crossed. The woman continued to stare at him after her male companion had averted his gaze.

"Is he?" Tarell feigned surprise. "And he was as black as pitch when I sent him out. What could have happened? Did you fade in the sun, offworlder?"

"I don't think so." In response to his owner's beckoning, Chekov moved towards them, fighting his burning desire to stare at the back wall and figure out where a security system could be hidden. As he moved towards Tarell and her visitor, he realized he wasn't exactly sure what was expected of him in this social situation. Deciding to conform to the only rules of etiquette he knew, he gave the newcomer a polite nod. "Your acquaintance honors..."

"Oh, shut up, you idiot," Tarell interrupted rudely. "Pieces of property don't greet free people."

"Oh, of course." Chekov blushed deeply, thinking that she might have given him some warning or at least found a more discreet way of correcting him. "I'm sorry if I offended..."

"Just shut up," Tarell grabbed his sleeve and jerked him into a kneeling position beside her.

Her guest smiled pleasantly, unruffled by this awkwardness. "He certainly speaks well, Tarell."

If the Northern's vile language upset her genteel Southern visitor, the latter didn't let it show. In one perfectly coordinated gesture, she put her hand out and her servant filled it with a glass of fruit juice without exchanging a glance.

"Yes," Tarell said between her teeth, indicating with a jerk of her head that he should be getting a drink for her also. "You may have had a name in the offworld, but since this isn't the offworld, it would be pretty ignorant to think that you're going to be called by some unpronounceable offworldish gibberish. Wouldn't it?"

He bit his tongue on the replies that came to mind as he got her stupid fruit juice for her.

"Don't worry." The visitor paused as her servant dabbed the corners of her mouth with a dainty piece of cloth. "Tarell will give you a lovely name... doubtlessly beginning with the letter T."

"It's a Northern custom," Tarell explained, wiping her own mouth with the back of her hand. "The first letter of men's names show who they belong to and the last letters of women's names show who their mother was."

"Very quaint," her guest commented with sweet condescension. "A pity Sahshell seems to have decided to abandon the practice in favor of our more causal Southern style."

Tarell returned her smile. "Well, naming customs do help us to keep from sleeping with our uncles and brothers.... Oh, no offence."

Her visitor looked confused for a moment. She then followed her host's gaze to her servant as if she'd completely forgotten he was there. "Oh, yes. Well, Humiot and I are only half-siblings at most. We might share a father but it's not like we share a mother. Now, that would be just too close."

"You know my aunt Claon bought two of her full brothers because she just couldn't stand to separated from them, but they've never been able to have healthy children. I suppose we Southerners are just too sentimental for our own good sometimes."

"But then again," she said as she delicately took a piece of fruit from the waiting hand of her sibling/servant, "you aren't at all related to Tirst or any of your other men, but you've had some problems conceiving too...."

"You aren't going to mate with this one, are you?" her visitor asked, then laughed daintily. "I mean, all your children would be white, wouldn't they?"

"Probably not," Chekov answered, since it looked as though the question was directed towards him. He wasn't a biologist, but he knew that the results of artificially aided breeding produced much more predictable selecting, omitting, and blending of racial characteristics than natural means. He doubted the Orions would design a gene splicer for the Ganzarites that would favor white skin if they were interested in having repeat customers.

"That's..." Chekov stopped himself before expressing his opinions on how naively racist and ethnocentric such a statement was. Not only would his comment as a member of a lesser race be unwelcome, the Ganzarite language had no word for 'ethnocentric'. "It's much more complicated than that."

"Well, there's no point discussing it since I'd never be foolish enough to spend the kind of money you'd have to pay for the medicine it takes to breed with an offworlder," Tarell said quickly.

He looked at her questioningly, wondering why she was lying, but she ignored him.

Her guest continued to watch him speculatively with her weak blue eyes. "Have you been a lot of trouble to Tarell, offworlder?"

"I think that wouldn't be too hard," she said, laughing. "How many times has she beaten you?"

His mouth worked for a moment without any sound coming out. Being casually questioned in such a demeaning and belittling fashion was so incredible to him, didn't know how to respond.

"But..." escaped his lips before he realized how disastrous it would be to voice his objection to such a question.

"You'll have to forgive him, Ushan. My little offworlder is quite civilized. He finds the entire subject of beatings distasteful," Tarell said, accurately stating his reasons for him. "It's not occurred to him yet how much more distasteful it would be for me to beat him in front of you for refusing to answer questions put to him."

"Nothing really," Tarell said, then crossed her arms. "Other than embarrassing my overly proper servant, why are you asking, Ushan?"

"Foushee's have a horrible time with her new one," the Southerner gossiped eagerly. "He looks marvelous and cost a fortune, but he's as wild as the wind. He wasn't conditioned properly. She's had to..."

"Not in front of this one," Tarell interrupted abruptly. She rapped Chekov, who had become avidly interested in the conversation for the first time, on the top of his head. "The two of them came together. But he's no concern of yours anymore, understand, offworlder?"

"Yes, ma'am," the ensign replied meekly, as a new surge of adrenaline pulsed through his veins. Commander Ghyka was in trouble nearby. Chekov had no excuse for delaying his escape attempt a moment longer than necessary. If only there was some way he could arrange to be left alone in this room...

"It would be a shame to see such an expensive piece of flesh ruined or put down because some blunderer didn't..." Tarell's visitor continued heedlessly.

"I hate to rush you," Tarell cut her off. "But I really have to be getting back to my accounts, Ushan."

"Of course." The Southerner smiled. "It gets so busy right before a harvest, doesn't it?"

"Go pull that cord beside my desk." Tarell ordered Chekov, pulling him up by one arm. "I'll have Sahshell come see you out, Ushan."

"I know my way to the door," her guest protested politely as her servant silently helped her to her feet.

"Yes, that one." Tarell nodded impatiently when the ensign hesitated over the long braided cord dangling from a hole near the top of the wall. "Now, come back here."

"He seems bright," Ushan commented cheerfully. Her servant unobtrusively arranged her robes. "I'm sure you'll have him trained in no time.

"Behind me," Tarell corrected, pushing her servant quickly into position. "Maybe I'll be able to bring him with me next time I visit your house."

"That would be a treat!" her guest exclaimed happily as her servant noiselessly pushed a chair out of her path then dropped behind her. "It's been too long since you visited last."

"...Reflects the generosity of your spirit, Tarell," her guest replied, completing the customary formula for departures.

Instead of Sahshell herself, one of her boys stood waiting in the hallway to convey the Southerners to the foyer. Tarell closed the heavy door behind them. A small smile crept over her face as she stood for a moment silently surveying her property.

"True, wasn't it?" she said. "What you told Ushan about your children not inheriting your skin color?"

"No, definitely. I've known of other women who mated with offworlders. A boy baby might take offworldish looks from his sire, but a girl always looks normal. She has the offworldish blood, of course, but it doesn't show so much on girls."

Chekov made no comment although this told him a good deal about the nature of the Orion drug being used to facilitate cross-breeding.

"That old bitch had me dreaming I'd have white babies." Tarell shook her head and laughed. "But I won't, will I?"

"Hmm," she said, stepping closer to him with a smile on her face. "You were very, very good while Ushan was here."

He wasn't really too enthusiastic about this turn in the conversation either. "Thank you," he said, returning her smile nervously.

"So polite, so clever," she continued in a frighteningly pleasant tone of voice. "I think you deserve to be rewarded, don't you?"

Tarell put her hands on her hips. "Is this coyness considered arousing in the offworld? I assure you I don't find your feigned reluctance to have sex with me at all attractive."

"Tarell, if I may be perfectly frank..." He swallowed, knowing this was a mistake, but went on anyway. "Our relationship has a rather artificial basis."

Since Ganzarite relationships between men and women were fairly simple, they didn't even have a word for "relationship". The word he'd used meant something closer to "kinship". "What I mean to say is that you don't particularly like me."

"You find my physical appearance repulsive and my personality offensive," he pointed out, then continued bravely, "and if I weren't conditioned to respond physically the way I do, I'm not sure I would be at all attracted to you."

Tarell put her hands on her hips. "I suppose you're being reasonable and rational with me now."

"All right." She nodded judiciously. "Then I'll give you a reasonable and rational decision to make. Either you can get your clothes off and get onto your back right now, or you can walk over to my desk, fetch the barbran stick out of the top drawer and bend over the arm of this chair."

"Well..." Chekov sighed as he loosed the ties on his shoulder seams. "At least I had a choice this time."

"Captain Kirk..." Dargion, the chair the governing committee, greeted politely at him as he entered her office. The desks of Ganzarite administrators were something to see. They were virtual works of art. All were elaborately carved and loaded with deep drawers and specialized nooks. Yet each deck was also individual and designed to reflect or project something about the individual owner. Dargion's desk was invitingly colorful.

"Dargion," Kirk smiled winningly at his first target. The Chair was a middle-aged woman with a face more rounded that most Ganzarites. She might not be the most attractive, but she was certainly the most approachable of the Ganzarite women in charge here. Since her job was to mediate and coordinate, she was far less arrogant and sharped-tongued than average. "Thank you for receiving me."

"I hope you aren't here with hopes that I can give you any special access to the investigation into their disappearance and death," she interrupted. "I'm afraid that's completely out of my hands."

Kirk clucked his tongue at her chidingly. "A few days ago I might have believed that. In my culture, there is a tendency to separate power and specialize skills. But I've been on Ganzar long enough to realize that within your committee structure of government, individuals often wear several different hats."

"Hats?" she said as he moved the chair placed in front of her desk to a more intimate position at its side.

"Have secondary as well as primary responsibilities," Kirk explained as he sat down. "Members of your staff also work for the security committee."

"How very clever you are." A glint in her eye told him this wasn't really a compliment. "I am impressed that you're gaining a deeper understanding of the way our culture works, however..."

"...However a decision has been made," he finished for her. "I understand that and I don't wish to put you in a difficult situation, but I'm sure you can also appreciate my concern, my desire for any additional information..."

"Of course," she said, sympathetic but unyielding. "It's a most unfortunate situation."

Kirk mentally drew in a deep breath. It looked like he was going to have to do this Gallew's way after all. "I understand. You know, this is one of the first opportunities that you and I have had to talk to each other outside of the council chambers."

"That's a shame," Kirk said. "I'm sure that because of the similarity of our jobs, you and I should have a great deal in common.... and it's always a pleasure to talk with a beautiful woman."

She smiled at him. But before he could celebrate a breakthrough and commend himself for the universal appeal of his charm, she said, "Excuse me for being blunt, Captain, but are you making a sexual overture towards me?"

"I don't mean to offend you," she continued gently. "But Ganzarite sexual practices are different from those of your culture.."

"No, Madame Chair," he corrected with a bold smile. "I've actually had some firsthand experience."

The Ganzarite's mouth fell open in surprise. "Really?" she asked, dropping completely out of character as the polite bureaucrat. "With who?"

"In my culture, it's considered impolite and ill-advised to disclose that sort of information," he replied demurely, getting the feeling that he had her hooked now.

"Yes, yes, of course." Dargion struggled to regain her detachment, but broke down to ask, "And she enjoyed it?"

"Well, I seem to be willing to try again," he said as truthfully as was possible.

"Hmm." Dargion rubbed her forefinger thoughtfully across her lips as her eyes ran down his body appraisingly. She then consulted stack of carved blocks and beads on her desktop that Kirk recognized as the Ganzarite version of an appointment calendar. "We have a saying here, Captain Kirk: The only thing more dangerous than unsatisfied curiosity is the satisfaction of curiosity."

"So," she said, rising, "as you Federation people would say, what the hell? I've got a half an hour. I'll try you out if you're willing."

"It's a little too light in here," she said, guiding him with a hand on his back towards a door to their right. "I've got an antechamber that will be more appropriate... Not to say that it has to be dark... I mean, I don't mean to indicate that you're unattractive..."

"I wasn't taking it that way." Kirk said, feeling like a mercy date for the first time in his life. If Chekov wasn't already dead, Kirk was going to kill him for this.

"And, of course, you do understand that if I indicate I'm not enjoying what we're doing, our customs require that you stop immediately," she cautioned, opening the door for him.

Kirk purposefully stepped in the doorway and then gestured for her to proceed ahead of him. "Let's worry about that when it happens."

The period of disorientation that accompanied waking up on Ganzar was becoming rather brief for Chekov. He barely had time to rub his eyes before he remembered why he was lying on the floor of the study of a Ganzarite dwelling and the nature of his relationship with the native woman standing over him. "Did I go to sleep?"

"Only for about two hours," Tarell replied dryly. She picked up a large piece of white material and dropped it on him. "You may want to put some clothes on ...out of respect for my sister's eyes. All this whiteness could blind her."

"Yes, of course." He hastily wrapped the material he was lying on around him and threaded the ties through the proper sashes to convert it into a pair of trousers. He sat up and began fastening the series of knots that ran up the inseam of his garment. He was half-way to his knee when Tarell cleared her throat loudly.

"It's the knot that stands for the number three," she said, kneeling down and undoing all he'd managed to accomplish. "You don't use it to tie your clothes with. I don't see why you have to be fornicating thick-headed about asking for help. When do they teach you in the offworld that you need pretend to have all knowledge? At birth?"

"You're not helpless. You're just dependant," she corrected firmly as she wrapped the ties around his left ankle. "On me... from now on... And now I suppose you're going to tell me you don't enjoy that either."

"It doesn't do you any good to sit there with a stubborn look on your face thinking you're right and I'm wrong." She put his shirt on him. "Now does it?"

"Does it?" she repeated, tipping his chin up. His nonverbal answer was pretty obvious from that range, but she let him get away with it for the moment. "You're such a serious thing... but you smiled for me this morning, didn't you?"

He didn't answer or meet her eyes, but he also couldn't quite pull away from her touch.

She laughed and mussed his hair. "Pretty soon you're going to have to stop pretending that I'm being cruel to you, offworlder."

"Leave?" She laughed again as she finished tying the knot at his neck. "You'll stop wanting that soon. Already you can't even remember the word."

Chekov watched her fingers as they worked their way down his right sleeve, holding onto the idea that the key to his freedom was only a few feet away behind the back wall of this room.

"And..." Tarell continued as she secured another tie across his chest. "You can't tell me you don't enjoy the sex."

To his ever-lasting humiliation, he couldn't say that. In fact, it was all he could do at that moment to keep himself from reaching for her. "It doesn't seem quite natural, though," he protested feebly.

"To... to do... such things... so often," he said, keeping his voice very low, as if to prevent some non-existent auditor from overhearing their conversation. "I do not believe that my body is supposed to function in such a manner."

Tarell laughed at him for this. Her laugh started as a mere chuckle but soon worked its way up to a full-throated expression of mirth.

"What a little... " She affectionately pinched his cheek as she called him a derogatory combination of the words for coward, virgin, and prude. "... you are. Is that what's been the matter with you? You're afraid I'm going to fornicate you to death?"

"Don't you worry, laddie." Tarell smiled as she reached over and patted his inner thigh in a manner that took his breath away. "It's your body I bought. Don't doubt that I'm taking proper care of it. I intend to see that it lasts for a very long time. Now put all this furniture back the way it's supposed to be."

"Just do it." Tarell headed back towards her desk. "If you're wrong, I'll correct you."

That was certainly the Ganzarite way, Chekov reflected sourly as he drug a low table back to its place between two facing chairs. Why tell someone the right way to do something to begin with when it might ruin your opportunity later to abuse them for doing it incorrectly? He worried about Commander Ghyka as he straightened a hammock-bottomed chair. It sounded as though the commander was being a lot more successful at putting up resistance. Chekov hated to speculate on the price he was probably paying for it, though. The ensign took the opportunity to glance up at the back wall as he returned a couple of stray cushions to the divan-like seat in front of him. The security monitoring system was likely to be near the computer terminal. Even if he did find it, it was still going to be hard getting out of this room. One door and a line of closed windows along the east wall were the only possible exits...

"What did Ushan want?" she asked, as she pointed the boy in the direction of the low table.

"Who knows?" Tarell put down her pen and crossed to cluster of furniture. She sat down in one of the chairs opposite the table. "She was snooping around pretty hard. Come here, my little animal. It's time to feed you."

Chekov had to assume she was addressing him. He hoped that this meal didn't consist exclusively of more oliov, but he was disappointed as the cover was removed from the tray.

"Kneel down," Tarell instructed, as Sahshell's boy exited as wordlessly as he'd arrived. "I'll let you hold onto the arm of the chair this time."

"You needn't go to the trouble..." he began, as it became apparent that this meal would also involve being fed by hand.

He tried chewing the stuff, but the lack of taste made the exercise pointless. "Of feeding me this way."

"Don't worry about that." Tarell put another cube into his mouth and turned to her sister. "It's how Ushan puts on such a show of being my friend that makes me want to strangle her."

Chekov swallowed the next piece whole. "What I mean to say is, I'm capable of feeding myself."

"Look, I'm trying to have a conversation with my sister. Just shut up and eat or I'll turn you over my knees and..." Tarell used an unfamiliar verb. " .... you. ... What are you giving me that look for?"

"I didn't understand what you said. Although I suppose I'm correct to assume it's a punishment of some sort?"

"Yes," Tarell answered. "And since it's a pretty effective cure for people who like to be stubborn and talk too much, you'd better watch your step."

"As I was saying..." Tarell turned her attention back to her sister as she continued to feed him. "Ushan said she'd come by to see this one, but I suspect it's for the usual reason."

"Tarell," Sahshell chided, stretching out like a cat on the wide chair she'd seated herself in. "According to their rules, you are as free as they are to go to their houses under the pretence of making a social call and snoop around to see if they're getting ready to bring a crop in."

"I would hate to stoop to their underhanded ways," Tarell said. "But now that I've got this one to go with me and wait on me, I just might start paying calls and see what I can see."

Even when Tarell complimented him, she could manage to make it sound like an insult.

"If you do start taking him places with you, you're going to have to start calling him something other than 'that one'," her sister pointed out. "I don't think the members of the Harvest Committee will like having a servant called 'the alien' in their houses."

"I've been giving it some thought. He seems to take it as a punishment that I don't call him by a real name."

Chekov found it very strange to have both women looking directly at him and still speaking about him in the third person as if he wasn't there.

"But I just can't quite give him a real name," Tarell complained. "I mean, he's such a white little alien. It would sound ridiculous to call him by a real person's name."

Tarell smiled as she fed him another square of tasteless Aldeberan processed food. "I'll bet you don't know what that word means either, do you, offworlder?"

"No..." Chekov searched his linguistic memory banks. "It sounds like a word for a color."

"It's an old word for a particular shade of brown." She caressed his cheek fondly. "The color of your pretty eyes. People up North still use the word, but these Southerners rarely do."

"I know." Tarell grinned. "That doesn't begin with a 'T'. What do you think of your new name, offworlder?"

Chekov thought the whole proceeding was pretty damned low. He was as much of a real person as they were. He didn't deserve to be named -- as some people on Earth did their pets -- by his coloring. "I do have a name already."

"It sounds much like a Ganzarite name," he persevered, "and isn't at all difficult to pronounce..."

"I think," Tarell said, moving forward to the edge of her seat then reaching behind him and taking a hold on the sash securing his trousers in place, "that it's time to teach you a new word."

The ensign gasped as she pulled him forward over her lap, pressing a large segment of the super sensitive area of the front of his body against her legs. Even through the thin fabric of his clothing and hers, the stimulus was intense and immediate. This violently pleasurable sensation was quickly nullified by the violently unpleasant sensation of the flat of Tarell's hand coming down hard against his backside.

"This," she said, pausing just long enough for burst of pain to fade and the arousal to rekindle before she struck him again, "is what we call a spanking." She said the unfamiliar Ganzarite word slowly and clearly, then brought her hand down again for emphasis. "Do you think you can remember that?"

"Ow!" He couldn't seem to get out from under her hand on one side or away from contact with her legs on the other. She had him off balance, holding him down by the neck with the hand that wasn't hitting him. His hands clutched at first this piece of furniture then that, but his mind wouldn't let his muscles pit themselves effectively against Tarell's. His knees weren't quite touching the ground and the bells in his shoes made frantic jingling noises as his feet tried to gain purchase against either floor or air. "Yes, yes! I'll remember!"

"It's a punishment..," she said, continuing both her lecture and bringing her hand down at maddeningly slow intervals, "..we use on small children before they come of age and on adolescent boys who've had the same conditioning as you..."

"Ow!" He desperately wanted to take this degrading punishment stoically, but couldn't. It wasn't so much the impact that made him cry out as it was the shock resulting from the sudden conversion of pleasure to pain. The change was too swift and drastic for his nervous system to handle. It was like being tickled to the point it hurt -- only a million times worse and a billion times more mortifying. "Tarell, please! Ow!"

"...Although you can see that it's a much different punishment for the boys after they've had the conditioning..."

"Ow! Yes, yes!" Blood was pounding violently in all the vital parts of his body. "Oh, please stop, Tarell! Ow! Please, let me up!"

"...The only reason we stop using it is because the boys eventually get too big..."

"Ow! Oh, God!" Rather than being something one could become dulled to, the discomfort became steadily worse and worse. "Tarell, please, please let me up...!"

"Ow! Please, please, please, Tarell!" he gasped, frantic in his desire to placate her. "I apologize for whatever I did wrong!"

"Oh? What do you mean, 'whatever' you did wrong? Don't you know what you did wrong?"

"Ow! Yes, I promise not to argue with you any more ever again! Please, let me up! Ow!"

"I don't know about that," Tarell said, grimly. "Some people can argue by not talking, can't they?"

"Ow!" Although it was clear that Tarell could continue on like this all day, Chekov wasn't sure how much more he could take. "Tavic... Ow! I said, Tavic!"

"I know," Tarell said, pausing another leisurely interval before bringing her hand down again. "This is for being so fornicating stubborn."

"Ow! Yes, ma'am! Yes, ma'am! Please, Tarell, please! Ow! Please, please, let me up! I promise never to be stubborn again."

"I doubt that, but I guess you've learned your lesson for today." After one final swat for good measure, she pulled him back up and onto his knees beside her chair.

Sahshell was still laughing. "I don't think I've ever seen Chood or Toz squirm and squeal any more than that. Look how red he's turned."

Chekov gripped the arm of the chair very tightly. He studied the grain of the unvarnished wood intently and swallowed the tears starting in his throat. His anger could only manifest itself as a dull headache and in this determination not to allow them the pleasure of seeing him cry.

Tarell patted him on the head patronizingly. "Not a very dignified position for my very civilized little offworlder to find himself in, hmm?"

"A very good punishment, isn't it? There's no chance of really hurting you. Probably won't even leave a bruise. Nonetheless..."

...Nonetheless alternating between the two extremes of sensation the Ganzarites' conditioning forced the body to experience left one feeling rather subdued, to say the least. Still, the punishment seemed insufficient cause to induce someone who had been trained to... The ensign had to stop. He couldn't stand to think of his training, what he had been, in the light of the wretched, cowardly creature he was rapidly becoming.

He fixed his gaze on the opposite wall. It did no good to remind himself that his freedom was only an opportunity that might never come away. "Tavic."

She turned his face towards her. "For the color of your pretty brown eyes," she corrected. "Say it that way."

Chekov swallowed and tried to convince himself that these were just words. "For the color," he said, choking on them anyway, "of my pretty brown eyes."

"Very good." She laughed triumphantly as she patted the part of his anatomy she'd so recently been abusing. "See, Sahshell, I'm going to get my money's worth out of this little one yet."

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