“Now you stay there until we’re ready for you, girly,” the yellow-eyed head instructed. “We have plans for you, so we do!”
That was exactly what Jillian was afraid of.
“Please!” she begged again. “Just let me go!”
“Oh we will…we will. But not until you’ve paid your debt,” the yellow-eyed head said, leering at her. “You see, girly, the part of you we wants most isn’t your sweet little hands and feet—not even those luscious breasts—they’d fetch a pretty credit, so they would! No, what we wants from you is the use of your womb.”
“My what?” Jillian stared at him, uncomprehending.
“Your womb,” Ripper’s yellow-eyed head repeated. “Humanoid females are good incubation vessels for Trollox heirs and you look like a good, fertile one to us.”
Jillian opened her mouth to deny this—she wanted to point out her age and say that there was very little chance of her getting pregnant at this point. But then she looked around the shop and shivered. If the huge Trollox had no use for her womb, how long would it take him to decide he ought to chop her up for parts after all? How long would she last if he decided she didn’t have what he needed?
“You…you want me to be your surrogate?” she asked, her throat tight with horror. “You want to—what? Use some kind of turkey baster and inject me with your sperm to make me…make me pregnant with your child?”
The thought sickened her—especially when she remembered that Trollox spawn chewed their way out of the womb when they completed their gestation. But at the moment, she was grasping at straws and even being a surrogate for a Trollox seemed better than being chopped up with the huge meat cleaver she could see sticking into the butcher’s block beside the sightless, decapitated head.
“Surrogate? Oh no, girly—Ripper will inject you with his seed, all right, but he doesn’t need to use any ‘baster,’” the yellow-eyed head informed her, while the red-eyed head roared with laughter. “No, Ripper will inject you with his shaft—you wait and see, you’ll love being so filled with Trollox meat.”
The huge Trollox grabbed the massive bulge in his rough trousers and both heads laughed this time—the red-eyed one with its usual, stupid hyuck-hyuck-hyuck and the yellow-eyed one with a high, evil cackle that sounded like a witch in a fairytale explaining how she’s going to cook the children and eat them up.
He’s talking about raping me, Jillian thought, her stomach turning with revulsion. Oh my God, that’s horrible! Just the thought made her sick—and scared to death. The Trollox was huge—over ten feet tall with body parts to match. He probably had a shaft like a bull—how the hell did he think he was going to get something like that inside her?
It’s going to hurt and it’s going to be horrible, she thought grimly. And then again, Oh God, I am in so much trouble!
Ripper started to say something else, but just then the door jingled and another Trollox—this one with only one head—walked into the shop.
“Open, are you?” he demanded, stumping up to the counter. “I’ve a mind to buy some parts for humanoid stew.”
“Open for business. Yes, indeed,” the yellow-eyed head agreed. Ripper took a stained apron off a hook on the wall—it had two loops at the top instead of one—and pulled it over both heads before tying it in the back. “Now then, now then—what can we get you?” he asked the other Trollox.
“Hmm…looks like a good selection.” The other Trollox inhaled deeply, his snout-like nostrils flaring in apparent appreciation. “And halfway rotten, by the scent of it. Just what I like!”
“Nothing fresh in here, no sir!” Both of Ripper’s heads lifted proudly. “And if you’re looking for extra rot and corruption, let us recommend these week-old intestines. Haven’t been cleaned a bit—still full and mighty tasty!” the yellow-eyed head added.
“Mmm—sounds delicious! Yes, give me some loops of those,” the other Trollox said eagerly.
“Very good.” Grabbing a hook from the wall, Ripper speared a long, glistening length of intestine and began shoveling it into a greasy paper bag. “And might we interest you in some buttocks? Plenty of fat for your broth. One cheek or two?”
“Two!” the Trollox customer agreed eagerly. “And a scoop of ears as well—we likes to throw them in the hotter until they’re nice and crisp!”
“Mmm—you have good taste, so you do,” Ripper’s yellow-eyed head complimented him. The red-eyed head simply rolled its eyes and laughed stupidly.
But Jillian couldn’t watch anymore. She turned, as well as she was able in the narrow cell, trying to look out the shop window to see if anyone was coming. But the red holo-letters of the sign got in the way and obscured her vision. And anyway, who did she think was coming for her?
For a moment she thought about Kalis and the way he had looked into her eyes and said, “I’ve been dreaming of you for two years.”