Field Work Ch. 03 - Duties

Dr. Perry wanted nothing more this morning than to be left the fuck alone, but someone was touching her again.

She hurt. She was tired. She had spent the morning sleeping with nothing beneath her but a goat skin, and nothing on top of her but a goat skin, and she was naked but finally warm and she deserved a goddamn minute of rest. A lot of people might have thought that it was sweet, the way that Attalos was rubbing some kind of salve into the place where the yoke had rubbed the back of her neck raw, but Dr. Perry did not.

She bit down her frustration, though, and didn't snap at him. She'd have to be patient a lot, during this field study. What would they do if she was a giant asshole to them? That might be another thing to try out, she thought, but she wasn't going to make trouble yet. She lay there on the goat skin and let Attalos tend to her.

She had done it. The thought came to her, and she was suddenly not angry at all, but nearly giddy with the thought. She had done what no one else had dared to do: she had become a participant observer in an interior men's camp. They were not only welcoming her: they would actively prevent her from leaving. There was no chance she would get kicked out of the camp due to some miscommunication or faux pas. She was here until they figured out she wouldn't get pregnant, which would take a year or more. It was an enormous amount of time. She would learn so much.

It was enough to make her comply when Attalos requested that she suck his dick. This was not one of Dr. Perry's great talents, and in normal times she'd have rightly bit the head off of anyone who'd made her kneel and shoved his penis in her face. She had a rapport to build, she concluded, and while it wasn't really a request, he wasn't exactly rude or demanding about it, either. In fact, he'd been downright solicitous, helping her up to her knees, careful to ensure that the hobble, which she still wore, didn't twist her legs around. She hesitated a moment, and he took the hair at the back of her head into his fist, and guided her mouth where he wanted it to go.

She thought it was pretty confident of him to trust her with his penis between her teeth, given that their relationship as yet was somewhat oppositional, and that she was pretty clearly not one of the women from the tribal settlements. What did he think of that? she wondered. What sort of sense had they made of her appearance in the island's interior, at exactly the time they were getting ready to select another woman? They were uneducated, but they weren't stupid. She let her mind wander as he moved her head around, showing her what he wanted from her, and she moved her tongue and lips in ways that she thought might be pleasing. He didn't complain, and neither did she -- she was feeling relieved that he wasn't trying to get between her legs, because she still hurt from the night before: her vulva was raw and sensitive, her legs ached from being held apart, and every time she moved she found something else that did not feel right, whether from the ritual or the night she'd spent on the hard ground.

His breathing got more urgent as he came closer to orgasm, and his hand gripped her hair more tightly. He began to thrust. She, jaw aching now, kept on doing what she was doing. When he came, it was just a grunt and a sigh, like he was lifting something heavy, and she had to try not to choke as he rammed the back of her throat and spurted semen into her mouth.

Dr. Perry felt a little sick. She sank back to the ground and sat still while Attalos ran his hand through her hair, and then she buried her face in her hands. There was no time to reflect on what she had just done, though, because he was moving her around again and retying the hobble, this time with a short connection between the piece of wood and the backs of her ankles. When he helped her to her feet, she found that she could take short, shuffling steps.

Some of the other men were up and about, stoking the fire and roasting breakfast. It smelled like potatoes. Dr. Perry's stomach growled. Attalos walked her patiently to the latrine, and she squatted over it, and then he took her to the river and they washed together. The stains on her body from the night before were still there: encircling her breasts, above her public mound. Presumably on her collar bone as well. The markings had smeared during all the activity, and now the actual marks that Herodes had made were blurred, with sharp little deviations where the pigment had found minute channels in her skin. It smeared when she washed it off, and when she stood up from the water, she noted that the stains left looked like giant, horrific bruises.

Back at the camp, while she dripped, Attalos tied a rope to the middle of the hobble and staked it to the ground, and wandered off to tidy his shelter.

Her hands were free, and it would have been the work of several minutes to untie the ropes. They didn't have to keep her immobile; simply having a man or two around to notice her freeing herself would prevent her from escaping, and of course they could all outrun her. They were good at tracking, too. She, wet and cold, shivered in the morning air, and sat back on a rock to watch the men.

They were watching her, too, now and then; their appraising stares made her stomach clench.

Herodes and another of them -- which one? What had she named him? It was either Elpides or Faenus -- came over to her with some cloth. Elpides (she was sure now, she remembered him playing the aula the night before) forced her onto her back, and she held her breath while Herodes examined her vulva. He only wanted to apply more of the cooling poultice, though. She was evidently not going to be raped again today, at least not vaginally. Elpides made her stand, and handed her some of the cloth while he brushed the sand from her back and folded a piece around her pelvis in a reasonable and well-fitting approximation of a piece of underwear. Herodes examined her breasts again, gently squeezing the nipples, massaging them in his hands. He said something to Elipides, and Elpides stopped what he was doing to look, too.

Whatever they had found to comment on, they didn't seem to think it noteworthy enough to invite anyone else over. Elipides took another of the pieces of cloth and wrapped her chest, which she was grateful for, and then pulled the wrap over her head. It was a big like a poncho, with a wide neck that she could sling over one shoulder or pull forward or back to keep herself more covered, and he showed her all the ways she could use it.

When she was settled, they made her sit down again in the sand, on a final bit of cloth, and Elpides bound her hands together in front of her. Unnerved, she looked for Attalos, and then realized how ridiculous that was; he was not going to protect her from whatever this was. She had an idea, though, and her suspicion was confirmed when Herodes produced a bowl of the same pigment he'd used the evening before, and a very sharp bone.

Elpides sat at her back and pulled her close between his legs: one arm sat loosely across her throat, and with his other hand he held her wrists. His grip was firm, but he didn't hurt her. Herodes knelt between her legs, his weight on the hobble, and put his hand on her knee to indicate that he wanted her to spread her legs apart.

Dr. Perry had not considered that being involuntarily tattooed could be sexy, but there was a combination of being tied up, gently restrained, and having something done to her without her input that greatly appealed. She could not see over Elpides's arm, so she didn't know what exactly was being done to her inner thigh, though she could guess; the tourist women occasionally received these tattoos, as well. Generally a woman would be marked each time she was taken captive, which could happen as many as five or six times in her life, and the mark indicated which tribe it had been, and which individual had been her particular captor. This would not be the only tattoo she'd receive, either; before they released her, they would record a result, which she'd have to have changed if she hoped to repeat the field study with another tribe. If they knew she couldn't get pregnant, she would be catch and release only.

Herodes was deliberate and thorough in the application of the tattoo. Elpides's arms were warm and comfortable, but Dr. Perry could have done without the scrape of the needle, and she struggled a few times, not insistently but in a way she hoped was polite and pleading, to indicate that she needed a break. As she expected, they didn't give her one.

When Herodes was done, Elpides bound her hands behind her instead of in front, and the both of them took their payments in the same kind of blow jobs as the sort that Attalos had guided her through an hour or so before. At least they expected to have to teach their captives something. Dr. Perry had imagined them being much more punitive and violent than they were -- they seemed to be going out of their way to be fair, or at least not cruel. Still, she wondered if she would have to remember nine people's separate blow job preferences, and hoped that it wouldn't get in the way of the real observation she was here to do.

Case in point: Bardas and Ibykos were engaged in anal sex, right out in the open.

She did a double-take when she saw it, her mouth around Elpides's penis, and she had to tear her eyes away when he moved her head firmly back to where it was supposed to be. No one else seemed to think that this was remarkable, and they hadn't gone out into the bushes to do it. Well, then, she thought, and she wondered where that had come from. It certainly made sense, as both a bonding activity and stress relief, but what amazed her was that this had never made it into any of the literature surrounding the tribes. The coastal bands had never said anything about it, certainly. Was it confined to a few interior bands, or was it widespread?

She wanted language so badly. When Elpides withdrew, she coughed and dribbled some of his semen on the sand between her knees, but he didn't strike her or shake her. He set her back against the rock he'd been leaning against as if nothing had happened, and he guided her legs apart so the tattoo was open to the air, and left her to her tired, aching jaw.

Alone now, and having missed the rest of the coupling between Bardas and Ibykos, she looked at the tattoo. Herodes had placed the symbol that indicated this particular band, and another that must mean Attalos. The symbols that the tribes used had no relationship to any phonemes, so she was still in the dark as to his -- or anyone else's -- name. Eventually, he reappeared and examined Herodes's work, and then sat with her and fed her potatoes from the fire.

It was less than a day in and already she had a million questions, and no way to ask them. When he left her alone, she went over them in her head and tried to commit them to memory. What she wouldn't have given for a supply of notebooks and a pencil. She had them, of course, but hidden in a cache outside the camp, so they might as well be inaccessible. Maybe she'd be able to sneak away at some point to write in them. Maybe if she ran away and then came back, they would allow her enough freedom to disappear occasionally.

This had been something she'd planned for. In fact, she'd studied memorization techniques before she came. But the human memory was fallible, and nothing could replace pen and paper. How she'd love to be making notes right now, drawing the weapons, the knots they used on their tents and on her, the restraints, her tattoo. At least the tattoo wasn't going anywhere.

Dr. Perry's chief interest was not her own treatment at their hands, but the things they did day to day, and without the pressure of sex, she was at leisure to observe those first few days. They did all sorts of interesting things. They played a game with knots that she couldn't figure out the rules of, though she tried, and their cooking seemed to be less "throw it on the fire and wait" than an organized, thoughtful cuisine that relied heavily on the wild spices growing in the area. The homosexual behavior continued, out in the open, without apparent discrimination between the individuals or number of participants. They were affectionate with each other in a gentle sort of way, and one man was as likely to sit playing with another man's genitals as he was to rub his feet or hug him or hold his hand. This treatment extended to Dr. Perry as well, though while the male recipient of their attentions could reject this, she had no such privilege.

On the third day, she was sitting in the middle of camp when Attalos came up to her and made her lie back. He untied one of her ankles from the hobble, loosened the shorts she wore and looked at her vulva at length, then began to finger her, watching her closely for discomfort. By this point, she had healed, and was in an annoying, near-constant state of sexual frustration brought on by the attentions of the men and the knowledge that they would begin to make use of her again at any time. She would never have admitted it to herself, but she was not disappointed when he took the initiative.

He was less concerned, this time, than he had been with her enjoyment the night of the ritual. Instead of tonguing her clitoris, he spat into her vulva and rubbed vigorously. Dr. Perry wondered what the band expected of her. Resignation? Enthusiasm? She waited for some kind of cue, but all that Attalos seemed to want was for her to lie back and take him. He put his hands on her waist and slid her down to meet him, her vulva sliding down the bottom side of his erect penis. While she lay there stiff and unsure, his eyes slid over her body, and he ran a hand down her front, stopping on the fading stains. In a moment he was going to slip inside her, she knew, and she also knew that this would never make it into her notes. She had to acknowledge that she had given up certain freedoms by coming here -- of course she had, everyone knew that the men on this island did these things -- but there was a curious freedom she had gained. A rapist from her society would be unkind. He would taunt her if her body responded, or use that response to defend himself. She would remember whatever cruel words he chose, and would have to fight her own shame whenever she thought of it.

This, by contrast, was exactly what it was. All of the women they took were captives; they all "enjoyed" themselves if they were physically capable of it. She was not unusual. She could fight it or lie back and try to enjoy it, and if she needed to justify it to herself, she could blame it on him -- the sexually experienced man, the man who could reach inside a woman with a rib bone and find her anterior fornix erogenous zone, the man she had no hope of fighting as he pulled the strings of her own body. It was more complicated than that, of course, but it was the narrative she needed to make this pleasant.

When he entered her, she was ready. She had been waiting for days. It felt far different than it had the first night; her terror then had been replaced by a feeling of... not quite safety, but of expectation. He might still hurt her, but she didn't think so, and now she was able to relax and appreciate the feeling of his penis inside her, and of the weight of his pelvis on hers.

He rocked gently inside of her and took his time, uncaring that several of the others were also in camp, and nearby. This was a trend she had noticed; the other men tended to note when sexual activity was going on, but seemed to think it unremarkable, and they reacted the same now. It was strange, almost decadent, and her lying here on her back, just letting it happen, though she was a captive—

She was a captive. She was being raped.

She felt suddenly panicked, and began to kick, and Attalos's penis slid out of her. She struggled to get out of the cage he made above her with his arms, and caught a glimpse of his surprised face as he pinned her to the ground. "No," he said, and the next words he spoke were in a soothing tone. He spat on her vulva again and re-entered her.

Someone took her wrists from. Whoever it was, he held her wrists above her head until Attalos finished with a final, hard set of thrusts, and shuddered above her, his pelvis pressed as close into to hers as their anatomy would allow. She was close to orgasm by this point, and moaned as he withdrew, but it turned out that she wasn't done; the man who had helped -- Bardas -- wanted his turn, and Attalos repositioned her for him. Together, the men got her up on all fours, and Attalos, from in front of her, took her in a headlock and wrapped his other arm under her armpits, so she couldn't move. Experimentally, she tried, but Attalos's grip tightened around her, and someone rubbed her back. It's okay.

It was not the way she'd have chosen to have sex, but it absolved her of responsibility for it. Nothing was expected of her. Her sole role in this moment was to exist.

Someone loosened the cloth bra, and fingers crept inside. Her breasts had been tender lately, and the nipples sensitive, and the sensation from this was nearly enough to make her come. She struggled hard again, feeling like this was wrong and she ought to try to stop it, but the men had more practice controlling women than she had being controlled. Bardas, whose pace had been building steadily, suddenly went into the hard thrusts that meant he was about to come, and as his penis rubbed against something inside her, she felt that orgasmic bliss that the bone had given her the night of the ritual.

Her cry, when it came, was more of a squeak. Attalos had to hold her up so that Bardas could finish. By the time he pulled free, she was sobbing, baffled at her reaction at the same moment she had it. Neither man was unsympathetic, but they didn't spend a great deal of time consoling her. Attalos held her still while Bardas retied her ankle to the hobble, and then, talking to each other, they took her to the latrine. She could have managed this herself, and had on several occasions already, but their eyes were on her and they wouldn't let her alone. She wondered why, and tried to stop crying, with limited success. Perhaps this was the point where captives tended to try to run away. Dr. Perry didn't blame them. How much worse would it be, knowing that you hadn't chosen this? What sort of shadow hung over the girls in the women's settlements, knowing that the little boys they grew up with might one day be doing this to them? Not for the first time, she wondered if ethnocentrism was really always a bad thing. Would the women welcome a different way of life?

Those same women would, if she had tried to join them instead, have also taken her captive, and held her to offer to the men, so perhaps they didn't quite deserve her sympathy. Anyway, this was happening to her right now, not one of them.

They kept her under guard the rest of that day, hobbled with her hands tied behind her back, and leashed to Attalos's waist with a rope around her own waist. It was difficult to concentrate on what she was supposed to be observing; she felt wounded, as though she had made a mistake and ruined the relationship and trust she was building with her captors. It was probably precaution, she told herself, and it was true that Attalos treated her no differently other than to keep her close.

Two more men used her that day: Herodes in the missionary position and Faenus from the back, and both times she clung to Attalos as he held her still. It was hard. She had thought that the ritual was the apex of her worries, and she had made it through that, and this was so much easier, yet somehow, despite the first moments this morning, it was not. It didn't matter that it didn't hurt. It was frightening and upsetting, and she willed herself to get over it, to get used to it and feel better so she could continue with the work she had come here to do. This is your new normal, she told herself. You wanted this.