The door opened and the Arab entered, locking it behind him. His eyes flickered over Jean's form stretched down the length of the bed. Her body was te...se and some of the bravado she had seen building up deserted her as she saw the cold business-like look on his face. He walked to the foot of the bed and looked down at her."Well my pigeon, we must open shop. Our first customers will be coming soon and we want to be ready for them." What--what do you mean?" Jean whispered in a low unbelieving. Even before the sun was up Charlie was. She had to feed the chickens, milk the cows, and collect the eggs needed for breakfast. So was life on the farm along the banks of the Grove River and she accepted it, most of the time that is. There were more chores now, more 'responsibilities' as Ma would say each time she saw her youngest daughter with sweat on her forehead."We each have to pull our own weight dear, now more than ever. No one else gonna do it for us, you have to show you're a part of. After this she could only go home and become the sort of baby machine her mother had been and had died from being. Leaving Karen with a generally kind but often drunken father and a second stepmother only a few years older than she was. Mason was her only chance out of that sort of life; she could not afford to lose it.She dropped to her side on the bed. Though her ear landed on one of the buttons, she did not move to a more comfortable position. The trading sex she could deal with. Women did. And endless interrogators badgered me day and night for information I wouldn't reveal.Where had we been? Walking the streets. Why? Release of tension. Who was with us? Nobody. What happened to the cat I'd brought in? We'd let him go. They'd vary the sequence, vary the wording, vary the intensity, but it all came down to just these things, and I gave the same answers every time. They threatened me with Guantanamo where they've stashed all the supposed terrorists, I amused myself by asking if it.