Free Felicia by S. J. Lewis Page B

couldn’t figure any of it out, and had finally stopped trying. Now she was being led somewhere by the big eunuch who had whipped her, and she didn’t really care where she was being led to or why. At least she told herself that. Way down deep she still felt a gnawing fear that she was in for more painful experiences. It came as a surprise to her when he took her through a door and into what looked like a small doctor’s office. She could see an elderly man in a white coat, apparently the doctor, a plain-looking nurse in a plain-looking white uniform, cloth-covered tables with medical paraphernalia spread out on them, a gurney and a gynecological exam chair. Selim indicated that she was supposed to get up onto that last item, and she obeyed, even putting her feet into the stirrups without being told to. She didn’t know why she was getting medical care now that her injuries were already healing well, but she didn’t care about that either.
    Selim stood behind the exam chair and held her chain leash tightly. The nurse approached with a hypodermic and a smile while the doctor busied himself with other things. Up close, Felicia realized that the nurse was older than she appeared at first, with fine wrinkles around her eyes and the corners of her mouth. The smile she wore appeared to be entirely professional, with no sympathy or other feeling behind it. It never changed in the least as she swabbed Felicia’s shoulder with alcohol and then jabbed the needle in. With all the other aches and pains that she’d become used to, the injection felt no worse than a mosquito bite. She remained still as the needle was removed and the nurse, still wearing that wooden smile, went away.
    Whatever had been in that hypodermic, Felicia soon wished that they’d given her a bit more of it. Her pains started to fade and for the first time since she’d been brought here she felt calm and relaxed. She even found it vaguely amusing when the nurse came back and began securing her ankles with leather straps so that she couldn’t pull her feet out of the stirrups. It was a bit less amusing when her hands were pulled up over her head and secured to the exam chair with more straps. But by the time the nurse was wedging another one of those damned bit gags between her teeth and buckling it in place whatever drugs they had given her had completely kicked in and Felicia almost felt like giggling. Were they worried that she would try to bite somebody? How silly!
    The doctor came over and began inspecting the marks on her body. As painful as all those angry welts had been, the whip had never broken Felicia’s skin and the fading red lines were apparently satisfactory to him. She thought of telling him that she had some on her back too and he should probably have a look at them, but then she tried to picture how she could possibly position herself on the exam chair so that he could do that, and she felt that urge to giggle again. What had they given her? She shook her head, trying to clear it, but she seemed to be awfully weak, and her head almost too heavy for her neck to move. She closed her eyes and sighed. This wasn’t anywhere near as bad as whipping and gang rape, and if they were giving her medical care, even as late as this, it meant that she was still somehow valuable to somebody. The thought was not much of a relief, but it was at least something.
    “Well, doctor, how is she?”
    Felicia’s eyes flew open as she recognized the voice of the sheik. She saw him entering the exam room in his robes, a curved knife in a jeweled scabbard thrust through the sash around his waist, looking every bit the desert bandit chief from some B-movie. The exam chair was positioned so that as he entered he had a perfect view between Felicia’s spread legs. Instinctively, she tried to pull her knees together, but the bindings around her ankles prevented it. The sheik saw her try anyway and smiled at her.
    “She is healing well, so far as I can tell so far,