other. She said it made them superior to be able to use the true speech. They never let whites learn it… only the words we need to know to obey them. Clara’s voice echoed through Rebecca’s chanting.
They stopped well after dark, and Rebecca was pulled into a small clearing surrounded by boulders. She collapsed in exhaustion, the ripped hem of her dress sliding up and exposing the damage to her feet. Tokala walked over to her and pulled on the leash until she was forced to stand again. Her sluggish movements were robotic, and he jerked on the leash until she faced him.
The sight of his black eyes, inches from her own and ripping through the shock, caused her to shake her head and begin crying, again. Not real. Oh, god. This can’t be real. Rebecca trembled and looked at the other men for help. The savages stood, leaning against their horses, amused.
Tokala ran his hand down her side, and Rebecca flinched and tried to pull away from him. Her shriek was muffled by the gag, and he laughed at her fright and continued to paw her. She prayed to return to the shock that had managed to numb her mind and keep her from being so afraid.
He slid his hand over her hip and she screamed. An overwhelming terror washed through her. She felt his fingers grip a fat cheek of her bottom and dig into her flesh. “Ganali,” he stated, in a guttural growl. In the background, Rebecca heard the other Indians laughing. The man clutching her said something Rebecca did not understand to them, and they laughed again.
Tokala stared down at her, and fisted the torn neckline of her dress when she tried to pull back. The Indian narrowed his eyes to a malicious glare, and he lifted his mouth on one side. “It means ox,” he sneered. “There is a lot of meat on you.”
Rebecca was too frightened to be embarrassed. Tokala grabbed one of her breasts and squeezed, pulling her over to a tree. Oh… oh, god. No amount of trying to move her mind to another place and time worked when his thin fingers bit deep into her soft flesh, mashing her nipple. She was completely in the current moment, surrounded by savages, and feeling the painful explosion of Tokala’s grip on her breast. “Aaah.”
Tokala smiled at her muffled scream and the panic in her eyes. He was truly a great warrior to have been rewarded with a captive of his own. Tokala was determined to show his tribe how much she feared him, and how well he could control her. He tied her leash to a branch, and returned to unbridle his horse.
Rebecca had barely managed to keep from sliding into hysterical panic. The relief of dulled shock seemed to cloak her mind again, and to push back the fear. She sat down and looked at the bruise forming on her breast. The shock slowly dissipated, allowing her terrified thoughts to return to what the Indian had done to Clara. Rebecca panicked and wailed behind the gag, trying to close her bodice with her shaking, bound hands.
“Ganali,” Tokala yelled angrily. Her eyes snapped up, and he shook his head. He put his hands in the center of his naked chest and pulled them apart. His meaning was clear: he wanted her to open her dress.
Rebecca dropped her hands to her lap, and one large breast sagged out of the ripped material. She stared at it and watched her tears fall on the bruising while muddied thoughts of churning butter, eating ice cream, watching Henry… Oh, god.
“Ganali,” Tokala demanded. He made the same motions with his hands, but she could not move. He stormed back over to her, and reached down. Tokala gripped the material in both hands and ripped it to the waist. He pushed it back so that her bountiful breasts were exposed, pushed together by her arms, and seeming to explode from the torn calico. Rebecca was naked from her neck to her navel. She screamed and kicked out at him, and he looked down and laughed at her. Tokala stared proudly at her massive breasts for a moment. He puffed out his chest and walked back to the others, but they were