Still mesmerized by my small bit of freedom, my head rose slowly to look up at the woman.
“Are you hungry?” she asked.
The woman wore a long, flowing dress the color of cream that hung loosely over her hips. Her strawberry-blonde hair fell neatly over her shoulders, a barrette on each side kept her bangs out of her face.
“No one here will hurt you.” She smiled down at me with kind eyes set in an inviting face, and reached out a slender hand.
I glanced over to see that Petra was no longer in the room.
With hesitation, I reached out my hand and placed it within the woman’s.
“Where is Petra?”
“She went to get a hot bath,” the woman answered. “It was harder to wake you, so we thought we’d let you sleep longer—you seemed to need it.”
I noticed the brunette woman to my right was pregnant.
“You said a hot bath?” I asked, realizing.
I could hardly believe such a thing. Back at home I learned to clean up quickly using what little water we could spare for bathing and washing dishes. There was never enough water for full baths—it would take many hours to carry enough back from the lake to fill just half a tub.
“Yes,” the woman answered with a gentle smile; she led me out into the hallway, and then told the other two women: “I’ll take it from here.”
The women left down the wide hallway, the fabric of their long dresses swishing about their legs.
The woman took me to a room with a cast iron tub on four clawed feet. Wisps of steam rose above the water, and I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw it. A bath full of hot, clean water just for me. My heart warmed, and a smile almost split my face, until I thought of Sosie and felt only guilt.
“Can you tell me anything about my sister?” I turned to the woman gathering a few things from a supply shelf.
“I’m sorry, honey,” she said, “but I don’t know who your sister is. Is she the girl you were asleep with? Petra?”
“No…no, my sister’s name is Sosie. She’s blind. That man, the Overseer, said she had to go to…the brothel.” For a second, I was uncertain if it was the word he had used.
I assumed by the woman’s silence she didn’t have the heart to comment; she placed two tiny bottles of shampoo and conditioner on the floor beside the tub.
“Here, let me help you.” She reached out and took the bottom of my blouse into her fingers.
I raised my arms with reluctance and let her slip the fabric over my head.
“You’re not as skinny as most girls brought here,” the woman said as I stepped out of my pants. “But you’re malnourished.”
Cuts and bruises covered my body; the woman’s face went from kind to apologetic the longer she looked at it. I stood naked next to the tub, my scrawny arms crossed firmly over my breasts; my bony legs were pressed together tightly; my ribs protruded beneath the skin, and from the mirror I saw my spine defined down the center of my back like an alien out of a science fiction movie.
“Oh, sweetheart,” the woman said, placing a hand at my lower back. “We need to get some antiseptic on those feet; I’m surprised you’re able to stand on them at all.”
So was I. All I’d ever wanted to do since I’d traded my sandals for Satan’s boots, was sit down.
With the woman’s help, I got into the tub, bracing my hands along the cast iron side. I practically melted when the hot water touched my skin, and I sank deeper into its depths. I braced the back of my neck against the edge of the tub; I didn’t care one bit that my feet were burning to where tears were filling up the corners of my eyes—I would take any measure of pain in exchange for this godsend.
“Thais?” the woman said. “That is your name, isn’t it?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The woman smiled gently, more with her eyes than with her lips, and then pulled my left foot from the water and cleaned around the open wounds with a wash cloth.
“My name is Naomi. I’m Rafe’s second wife.”
“Who is Rafe?”
I winced as the cloth grazed one cut.
“He’s the real Overseer,” Naomi said. “And the Overlord’s right-hand man. I imagine he won’t be back for several weeks at least.”
The “real” Overseer?
I vaguely remembered hearing the name ‘Rafe’, but couldn’t recall the conversation. All I knew was that I never wanted to see him face to face, especially now since it seemed I might end up as one of his wives, too.
“Is he a cruel man?” I asked, already knowing he was no matter what the woman chose to tell me.
The gentle smile in Naomi’s eyes faded; she looked only at my foot. “Not to his wives, usually,” she answered. “But he can be to others.”
“I want to go home,” I said, a knot twisting in my stomach. “I just want to take my sister and leave this place. We didn’t ask to come here. We were taken against our will and forced to come here.”
Naomi’s gaze softened on me.
“I understand,” she said. “And I’m sorry that you were treated the way you were, but you’ll see in time that this is the best place for you to be.” She dipped the cloth in the water to rinse it, and then wrung it out before going back to work on the same foot. “Overlord Wolf is only trying to put this country back together, and sometimes things must be done that would’ve been considered unethical in Old America. Times have changed, and we must all learn to change with them.”
I winced and made a hissing sound through my teeth.
“I’m sorry,” Naomi said, trying to be gentler. “Your feet will need time to heal, but they can’t start the healing process until they’ve been cleaned.”
“But why are women treated the way they are here?” I cared little about my feet; I wanted to know everything I could about this place.
“Treated the way they are?” Naomi inquired.
“Yes—forced to marry men they don’t love.”
Naomi smiled, released my left foot into the water and took the right one into her hands.
“The population has to survive somehow,” Naomi said. “And while I admit that it’s risky, and quite dangerous to bear children these days, it’s something that must be done and will always be done. It’s human nature to breed, especially in times of turmoil and crisis.” She worked the cloth around my ankle where a blister that had not yet burst, sat like a little balloon. “Even before society fell, Thais, when American women were too busy with their careers, and went to drastic measures to avoid pregnancy—or to end them—babies were born and died by the thousands in third-world countries to women who had no business having children. Why do you think that was?”
“Because they were raped,” I said with bitterness. “And because life in many third-world countries was chaotic and brutal and frightening. And because we are all animals, and animals are by nature, breeders and killers.”