Chapter 16

Actually the first order of business proved to be something called television. Anissa was astonished when the professor picked up a small plastic object, pointed it at the large glass-fronted box in the living room and pictures came to life on the screen. She'd seen a moving picture once, when her Chicago gangster master had wanted to show her off to his colleagues but this was so much more advanced. Not only was it here, in his own home but there was no film, no projector. And it was in color, with sounds. When he started changing the program with more taps on the button-thing, she sank onto the sofa and stared.

"What is this?"

"Television." He pressed the little black thing into her hand. "This is the remote control. It changes the channel."

He must have seen her confusion, because he showed her which buttons to push, then kept going. "It's like movies but broadcast into homes. With digital cable I have almost two hundred channels to choose from. I thought you could watch for a while, catch up on current events a bit while I take care of a few things."

She could have used her magic to make his clothing resemble a fashionable outfit, but he was determined to buy her clothing, and that degree of magic would have been exhausting. She nodded, not turning her eyes from the screen.

She was still staring when he returned.

"You ready to go shopping?"

Anissa held up her hand. "Wait." It was almost the end of a marvelous contest to find the strongest man on the planet. The top five contenders were moving boulders and she was enjoying watching their muscles bulge. Then she caught herself. What had she just done? She had never told a master to wait before in all of her eight hundred years. Most of them would have slapped her by now, if not worse. She dropped to her knees in front of the divan. "Forgive me, master."

"For what? Why are you on the floor?"

Anissa giggled.

She had not intended to laugh, it had simply happened. She looked up, expecting a slap and all she saw was a look of total puzzlement beneath the bristly beard. He honestly did not know why she cowered at his feet.

"What?" He peered at her and scratched his beard. "Did I put my shirt on inside out or something?"

She shook her head. He looked fine. His hair was still damp and he wore clean clothing. A black jersey tunic - no, she remembered from the television, it was a hoodie - announced, Some days it isn't worth chewing through the restraints. Beneath it he wore baggy tan trousers and heavy black boots. Hmm. Perhaps he had been a warrior after all.

"Well then why are you laughing at me and what the hell are you doing kneeling on the floor?" He reached out a hand and hauled her to her feet.

She waited until she could speak and tried to answer. The only problem was she had no idea what to say. Finally she spit it out between giggles. "I was afraid you were going to strike me."

"What?"

Anissa's eyes widened. She had not heard him shout before but his outraged bellow shook the very walls of the house. He backed away from her a step, crossed his arms over his chest and glared. "I. Do. Not. Hit. Women. Ever."

He was not just furious, she thought. He looked offended. And in his clear blue eyes, was a trace of something that resembled pain. She stepped up to him instantly, laid her hand over his crossed arms.

"I am sorry, David. I was not truly thinking about you when I reacted. I have had many other masters and most of them have not been nice men. Once I remembered where I was and who I was with - that is when I laughed. At myself, for being silly. Never at you."

He just stared at her for a long moment, his eyes narrowed, assessing. Finally he gave her a curt little nod. "Good. No hitting. No matter what. And just for the record, you have my permission to say whatever you want, whenever you want. You can tell me I'm full of shit, you can tell me to go jump in the lake, you can call me a big stupid jackass if you want. Got it?"

"Why would I want to do that?" He was making no sense at all. "You are big but I do not think you would be a professor if you were stupid. And aren't the lakes all frozen right now?"

This time he laughed and his stiff stature relaxed as he patted her hand. "Trust me, sooner or later, you'll get the urge. Now, let's go get you some clothes."

It was not the first time a master had taken her shopping but it was definitely the strangest. First he measured her feet with a sliding metal ruler. Then he carried her to his automobile, a boxy thing he called a Jeep. She had seen automobiles before but they had changed considerably in the past eighty years and this was much less comfortable than the long, stretched-out sedans she remembered. When he started it up, she jumped and shrieked at the loud blast of sound that emerged from the dashboard.

"Oops. Not much of a punk rock fan, I guess." He touched a button on the dashboard and the noise stopped.

"What was that?"

"Would you believe music?" He leaned over and took a strap attached to the top of the vehicle and then buckled it into a clasp at her waist, effectively lashing her into the seat. "Seat belts are required by law, now. You need to wear that every time you're in a car."

"Very well." She did not mind the strap. She just wished he had not brushed so close to her as he had fastened it. She could smell the crisp herbal fragrance of the shampoo in his hair and it married well with the duskier scent of clean healthy male. The combination was making her want things that a slave had no business wanting. Like a kiss. Or - more. She squeezed her legs together to ease the ache.