Why had she held back, then? Why had she denied her own desire, her own deepest need? Perhaps it was just the knowledge that what for her would have been the experience of a lifetime would have been merely the delight of a moment for him, something he would have forgotten after a few days and the next woman. She had found when it came to the point that she could not degrade herself to that extent. She could not allow herself to become what all men seemed to expect female servants to be: ready bedfellows. Not persons at all. Merely the human instruments through which they could satisfy their sexual appetites. She could not do it and live with herself the next day.

But she was not at all sure, Jessica thought, sighing inwardly as the large female changed position and jostled her further with hip and elbow, she was not sure at all that she would be strong enough to make the same decision if it were hers to make all over again at this very moment. It would be something indeed, something worth having, to be granted just a few minutes out of a life of neglect and insult in which to be the full focus of a gentleman's attentions. To know that for those minutes he would be intent only on her, on both pleasuring and being pleasured. To be seen fully just once, wanted fully.

But wanted for what? For Jessica Moore? Or for the woman's body in which Jessica Moore just happened to be housed?

She shifted sideways so that some of the pressure was taken off her left arm at least. She wondered how far they had traveled and how much farther they would travel that day.