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Should I believe him? I couldn’t help wondering, but I must forget that and concentrate.

Freedom. Maybe. He hadn’t answered me properly, yet it was the best answer I was getting. Freedom or my tongue cut off. Though only a threat – he might not carry through, he might be making the worst, sick joke, ever – I didn’t know.

“I have to convince you this is wrong?”

Isak nodded. Behind me, his man waited for God knew what.

While I thought this through, I crept my arms forward to cover my breasts. If ever I needed a calm mind, it was now. How impossible was this? He was the judge and executioner. The bias was clear as day.

“Immoral. It’s immoral.” Obviously. How could he argue against that?

He huffed a harsh laugh. “Morality? Yours or mine? And take your arms off your tits.”

To obey or not to obey. Rhetorical.

He watched as I obeyed. Resisting was as difficult as shoving an elephant uphill, though I could feel the shift of power when I tried.

An errant tear trickled from my eyes. I cleared my throat. “It would depend on that but surely in an argument like this the majority should rule? If you judge any statement by the standards of a pigeonhole society that’s perfect for your case, you could say anything was fine and moral. Killing a whole nation of people? Fine if you’re an ancient Roman or a gestapo member in World War Two. Making women subjugate themselves to you...or to your men, is immoral by the standards of almost any society.

BAM. I had him. I had him.

His eyes narrowed. With his shoeless foot on the edge of the table next to my face, he rocked his chair back and forth.

“I’ll give you a tick for that one.”

The glow of victory bathed my heart in joy for about one microsecond. I suppressed a derisive smirk. Best not to rile. “Good.”

“So instead of the other thing I thought up, I’ll just let Vitor fuck you.”

Stunned, I stared back.

“Ass or pussy?” I heard Vitor say from behind my shoulder, as if he were ordering a meal.

Get up. Run!

My inner thoughts had no link to my limbs and I lay there confused and angry, but unable to move. A piece of spaghetti would have more backbone in the face of Isak’s lumbering mental presence that pressed on me, constantly.

“Whatever you choose.”

Was this punishment for winning the argument?

The center of my forehead ached in a pre-migraine. I heard pants being unzipped. Hands hauled at me and slid me closer to Vitor’s side of the desk. I heard him spit, felt him smear his saliva on me.

“What a good argument you made.” Around Isak’s eyes crinkled, as if he thought to smile but couldn’t recall how to. He placed his forearms on the table and slid his chair nearer.

“You,” I managed to croak.

“What?”

“I want...you. Not him.” God that had taken so much determination to say.

“Really?”

“Yes.” Cultivating the enemy. Self-preservation. And a wish to limit my humiliation. “Please.”

I tensed for the invasion as Vitor’s cock-head probed at my asshole.