Eek! I think this one's a little long...if I need to I can split it into two posts, just let me know.

Questions

1. Is the switching view awkward? It's been all Penelope so far, so I fear it seems weird to have someone's else perspective. What do you think?

2. Does it seem weird when I bring up the whole thing about no women? Is that unexpected in a good way or a bad way?

Thanks so much for reading, friends!

Chapter 4

Derik peered into the mirror, giving his black hair a last pat. He was satisfied with how the night was progressing. His tall, broad form was emphasized by the well-cut suit that had been specially made to fit his large, muscled frame. The color suited him as well, making his pale skin a little less noticeable and bringing out his dark blue eyes. He was sure he'd make an impression on the new arrival. The women of this world had really seemed to become more comfortable with the situation when he arrived and flashed one of his smiles at them.

"It's nice to be handsome," he said, practicing his grin in the mirror. He heard something from the next room and frowned. The virgin was early. It was barely eight o'clock. He'd given them till midnight, and had expected it to take at least that long to find a willing victim. Apparently they'd had a volunteer. He sighed and took a last sip of champagne. He was getting a little tired of this. Fainting, exhausted women with tears pouring down their red but still lovely faces, falling into his arms and getting slobber all over his shirt...it was getting old. Still, it was his job, and had been for two of the twenty-nine years he'd lived.

Straightening his shoulders, he went to the door and opened it slowly, then entered with a large stride, kicking it shut behind him. Beside the entrance on the opposite side of the room there stood a girl. She had a pleasant, but not beautiful face with a blank, calm expression. Large silver earrings that didn't suit her at all hung from her ears, and an extremely long brown braid was slung over her shoulder. Her feet were planted in a wide, defiant stance, and her cargo pants were hanging low on her slim, muscled hips. Her shirt, an unpleasant tunic-like affair, was cut high on her neck and allowed Derik not even a glimpse of what her figure was like.

Her head turned towards the door as Derik opened it, and he saw a flash of relief in her large brown eyes before they returned to blank calm. He frowned, slightly irritated. Relief was not what he'd wanted to see there after he'd taken such pains with a grand entrance. Shrugging it off, he walked forward and smiled pleasantly.

"Hello, my name is Derik. I'm the one you have to blame for your sudden transportation from your home and safety out to this god-forsaken cave." He held out his hand.

Instead of taking it, she raised one eyebrow. "I really don't think so. You see, I'm a volunteer, so it's really myself I have to blame."

Derik opened and shut his mouth a few times, then smiled again. "Ah. Yes. Anyway, would you care to have a seat? I can explain everything."

After scowling at him for a moment, she grabbed the bag at her feet and walked over to the fire. Taking one of the chairs, she stretched her feet and looked at him expectantly. He lowered himself into the other chair and glanced down, noticing that her feet were white with cold. He shoved his slippers towards her feet. No need for her to suffer. She shook her head firmly.

"I must admit I am astonished at your calm. Most of my ladies have already sobbed their heads off and fainted by now," Derik remarked.

"I don't respond well to flattery, Mr. Derik," the woman said flatly.

Derik rolled his eyes. "Okay, okay."

The girl looked up at him and grinned suddenly. Derik blinked at the sudden change in her features. She sparkled with wicked merriment and life, and her expression was so open, inviting him to join in on her fun, that he almost smiled back. "I knew there had to be a man behind it somewhere."

"What?" Derik asked, startled.

"Well," the girl said, holding out her cold, bloodless fingers. "For one thing, how could a dragon have written that ransome note? And why would a dragon care whether or not his victim was beautiful? That was the true touch of a man. And the whole virgin thing, what was that about? I mean, seriously, that's so Dark Ages. So I figured there must be some sort of twisted rapist who had somehow gotten hold of a dragon and was using it as a pawn." She looked him up and down, and Derik felt a little smaller, as if she had punched his ego with a pin and it had shrunk several sizes. "Though, admittedly, I was expecting something a little...well...more intimidating. You know, maybe some tattoos, unshaven and greasy biker type."

Derik blinked at the sudden flow of words. "Well, I'm sorry my appearance offends your sensibilities. I'll try to avoid a bath next time I'm coming into your company."

The woman laughed and flung her braid behind her. Derik couldn't believe how infectious her laugh was. She was so exuberant. He wondered if she even realized how irresistibly happy she looked when she laughed.

"No, that won't be necessary. Anyway, you said something about an explanation? I'd like to know what's going to happen to me," the woman said, and for the first time Derik sensed a little worry in her tone. He sat back and smiled. This was familiar territory.

"Well, if you don't mind, I'd like to ask you a few customary questions, first." he loved toying with their minds. All the women broke down eventually, even self-possessed ones like this. He'd make her wait to know her fate, let her imagination build up all sorts of wild deaths in store.

"Certainly," she said, folding her hands on top of her flat stomach.

Derik whipped out his small notepad and a pen. "What's your name?"

"Penelope Eros."

He looked up and raised an eyebrow. "Your parents fond of Greek mythology?"

"No, not particularly. The parallels are pure coincidence. Penelope is a family name, and Eros was originally some unpronounceable Russian name before it got changed." Penelope Eros looked a little bored. She was apparently accustomed to this sort of response to her name.

"Moving on," said Derik, turning back to his notepad. "How old are you?"

"Twenty-four," said Penelope promptly. "But I still live with my parents, and I'm proud of it."

Derik raised his eyebrow. She sounded a little defensive. "And you're definitely a virgin?"

"Oh, yes, without a doubt," said Penelope. "I've never even had a boyfriend."

"What did you do, before you volunteered to be a dragon-sacrifice?"

"Well, I'm a free-lance writer for a newspaper, and I've published two novels. I'm also a musician on the side."

"That explains the living with parents thing," Derik muttered. He put aside his notebook and gave Penelope a once-over. "If you don't mind me asking, what exactly made you decide to volunteer? You're not, if you don't mind me saying so, exactly a beauty, so you didn't really have the qualifications."

"Well, I wanted to save the city, of course," answered Penelope. However, her gaze dropped her flip-flops, and her hand fluttered to the garish brooch that hung from her shirt.

Derik leaned forward and surveyed her jewelry more closely. She was in cahoots with the local police, obviously. She must be hiding cameras or something. He snatched the brooch out of her shirt, ripping a sizeable hole in the fabric. Penelope tried to slap him, but he dodged away and threw the brooch into the fire. She tried to reach in and grab it back out before it melted, but he closed his hands over her slender, muscled arms and pulled her close to his body. He blew a piece of her hair out of his nose, wrapping his arms around her body and pinning her against him. She went stiff and still in his arms, shrinking away from his touch as much as she could.

"Tell me, is there anything else you'd like to tell me about?" he whispered harshly in her ear. She shivered slightly and shook her head. With the movement, more of her hair wafted into his face, coming loose from the braid. He smelled her shampoo, some sort of flower, and for a brief moment he wanted to set all her hair loose and bury his face in it. Instead he tightened his grip. "Are you sure? I can always search you myself." He chuckled as he heard her gasp in terror.

"My earrings, take the earrings!"

"I thought so," said Derik. Carefully he pulled her hair back and unhooked the flashy hoops from her dainty, rosy ear-lobes. She was still uncomfortably stiff in his arms, but the position was becoming dangerous, as a strange desire to nibble her ear-lobes came over Derik. He abruptly released her and sat back down, tossing the earrings into the fire as well.

Penelope released a sigh of relief and sat down. She seemed to regain her composure now that he was no longer holding her. "Please, could you tell me what I'm supposed to do? I'm still rather confused as to why I'm here."

"Certainly," said Derik, nodding politely. "I come from another world where it is impossible for women to be born."

"What?" Penelope said. She had obviously not been expecting anything like what Derik was about to tell her. He grinned. He loved taking people off-guard - especially annoyingly confident people like Penelope.

"I don't know, maybe it's something about the atmosphere, but a female child has never been born to my world," Derik said, shrugging.

"No, I get that, it was the 'other world' thing I was confused about," said Penelope. "I suppose after a dragon I can believe anything, but you act and dress just like us." She glanced around the room. "And your room is furnished in a very Earth-like fashion."

"Just because I have a pet dragon doesn't mean I come from a place that's still stuck in the Middle Ages," said Derik. "Our world is very similar to Earth, only better." What a strange person Penelope was. She was different than any of the other girls he'd gotten so far. "Anyway, if you'll let me progress?"

"Oh, yes, sorry," said Penelope, waving one hand.

"You can understand why this lack of female population would be a problem. However, thousands of years ago the elders of our world came up with a solution. They had long known that other worlds existed, but had never bothered to cross between. They decided to cross to another world, bring back as many women as they could and rebuild the population. Then, when the women had lived out their lives, the new generation of young men they had produced would do the same thing over."

"Sounds bloody inconvenient," remarked Penelope. "So I'm just a little part of a huge plan to repopulate some weird world where women can't produce women?"

"Pretty much," said Derik. "That being said, however, you're not exactly what we're looking for."

"Oh? What, pray, are you looking for?" asked Penelope suspiciously.

"Well..." Derik hesitated. "Perhaps someone a little more - submissive."

"What? This is the twenty-first century, Derik. You can't expect little faithful wives you can drag off to your men."

"I guess I didn't mean submissive so much as...well, yeah, submissive." said Derik. He reached up and took a remote from the top of the fireplace. A screen appeared in the air above the fireplace, and Derik pressed a button on the remote. A scene appeared on the screen that made Penelope raise her eyebrow again. It was apparently a different part of the cave, and a much less comfortably furnished one. Rows of small cots lined the rocky grey walls, and a woman lay on each one. All of them were listless and pale, and some had tears on their faces, and they were all extremely beautiful. That was the only thing they had in common. There were women of every nationality imaginable, of every shape, size and hair color. There were at least four thousand of them, last time Derik had counted.

"Good lord, what are you trying to do? Set up another gulag for women?" Penelope asked, astonished. "Where did you get them all?"

"We try to get one from every city on Earth. However, since my world's population is so low right now at four thousand and one people, I'm just doing a small load. You're the last arrival. Well, you would have been. But you see what I mean? They're all very frightened and easy to deal with. They'll be so miserable after a few days in that room that they'll be glad to take on new husbands in a new world. Anything to get out, right?" Derik looked at Penelope to see if she was amused. She wasn't.

"So that's your plan, then? Starve them, isolate them, make them as uncomfortable and cold as possible, so they'll be grateful for the chance of marrying a total stranger for the sole purpose of reproduction? Are you expecting them to call you a hero? Are you expecting them to shake your hand and give you a kiss out of gratitude? What kind of a woman in her right mind would...I'd rather die than...what..." Penelope trailed off, sputtering angrily.

Derik sighed and turned off the screen, replacing the remote. "This is precisely why I think you'll be a problem. None of the men on my world will really want you, because you're not beautiful, you're smart and energetic and, in their opinion...trouble."

Penelope threw up her hands. "So, what now? Did I waste all this anxiety and worry and dramatic goodbyes with my parents just to be sent back like a pair of shoes that didn't fit? I feel somewhat used, sir."

"Yes, I figured you might," said Derik sheepishly. He was starting to like Penelope. She was so different than the rest of them. Also, keeping her meant he could go home and get this lousy job over with. He wouldn't have to send his dragon on yet another journey to another city.

"Well, is your dragon going to give me a ride home or should I just thumb my way back?" Penelope snapped as she stood. She opened her bag and thrust her arms through the arms of a long green trench coat. Slinging the bag onto her back, she scowled at Derik, waiting.

"Well, I don't really think..."

"What? You think you should kill me so I can't go around telling people how stupid this is? The big mighty dragon is just a pon for the 'great master' who just wants some tasty bites for his testosterone-overloaded buddies to snack on. How there's some world where women being used as tools of reproduction and household slaves is usual. How the little messenger-boy can't deal with real women, and has to take the little milk-toast weaklings instead."

Penelope paused in her rant to take a breath, and Derik moved forward and covered her mouth firmly with one hand. His hands had never seemed particularly large to him, but they felt huge, clumsy and rough against her smooth face.

"No, Penelope, I'm not going to kill you. I'm going to keep you."

Her eyes widened over his hand and she pulled away violently, wiping her mouth with the back of one tattered sleeve. "Keep me? Like some bag of groceries or a pet? What kind of an attitude is that?"

"Well, I think I could bear to have you for a wife," said Derik thoughtfully. "If you didn't talk too often, that is." He was deliberately provoking the already furious Penelope. "I mean, if I shut my eyes when we make love I could pretend you're beautiful, I guess, and you're probably strong enough to do the household chores."

She opened and closed her mouth soundlessly, the air sucked out of her lungs by fury. Derik laughed. "Seriously, Penelope. It's just easier if I keep you. I know none of the other men would want you, but I'm willing to give it a try. So why don't I just escort you to your room?"

She was still speechless from surprise and anger, but shook her head violently when he mentioned the room.

"Oh, don't worry. You'll have your own room. I've been saving a nice room for the one I chose for my wife, but I hadn't found one yet. That's where you'll go."

Derik tried to take her arm but she stiffened and pulled it out of his grasp, so he shrugged. "Follow me, then." He crossed the room and pulled open the door. After a moment of silence, he heard her follow him, drawing her breath again. He could feel her anger beating upon his back, and hid his laughter as best he could. This was definitely going to be more interesting than he'd predicted.