Cynthia's POV
With my skirt hanging haphazardly around my wais, and Mr. Madison looked at me, not as a human being at all, but as a cargo, which he could see as he pleased, whether good or bad.
I couldn't tell the look in his eyes, but if he was trying to humiliate me, he'd already done it. But he looked so closely, as if he were looking for anything unusual about me.
The gaze was like torture, and my face and body were boiling hot. Mr. Madison seemed to be muttering to himself, and I could not hear him. I could only catch a few broken words.
"Not like ......."
"No, it's a lot like ......"
"But ......"
I couldn't make out what he seemed to be saying, and to my shame, I felt a twinge of oddity. Mr. Madison's gaze was odd; he seemed to be gazing at a deceased person rather than at me.
