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to no privacy when they only had to walk by to peer in at her.
    They didn ‟ t actually walk by. For hours after she was pushed into her little cubicle, they stood at the bars, staring at her so hungrily that she was a nervous wreck within an hour. The only time those at the front left was when the ones that couldn ‟ t get a view punched them and urged them to leave. She very much feared there might have been some serious fights among them if not for Lecur ‟ s parting warning that fighting outside the ring would not be tolerated and anyone caught at it would not take part in the next gladiatorial game.
    She was near tears when the gladiators finally seemed to get their fill of gawking at her and wandered off. There was a latrine and a tiny bowl for water in one corner in the back and she ‟ d been thinking about it longingly for a while before the men finally left. The only privacy offered, however, was a low wall and even as short as she was she couldn ‟ t use the damned thing with anything close to privacy. She supposed she should ‟ ve been grateful for that much. Clearly the entire area had been built to house the gladiators and no one seemed to think men wanted or needed privacy for such things, but she did.
    It was just too…degrading and as demeaning as her entire experience had been since she ‟ d been shanghaied, she thought she just couldn ‟ t handle that one more thing without breaking down. It seemed likely that this would be a very long term situation, at that, and she just couldn ‟ t see „holding ‟ it until everybody fell asleep. She needed to do something to preserve what little remained of her dignity.
    Sighing shakily when the men finally wandered off, she began studying her surroundings with an eye toward „engineering ‟ some sort of privacy. She wasn ‟ t a designer, but it wasn ‟ t as if she wasn ‟ t familiar with working with things. Unfortunately, there were no tools. In fact, the room was virtually empty. Beyond the cot, which was actually a fairly large bed, no doubt because it had once belonged to a gladiator or had at least been built for one, and an unadorned and unpadded bench, there was nothing but the toilet, the tiny water fountain/wash bowl…and a shower head she discovered protruding above them. She stared at the shower head thoughtfully for a long time and then down at the blanket she was covering up with.
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    She could sacrifice the blanket for privacy to attend her needs, or have something to cover up with. That didn ‟ t especially appeal to her. It was cool in the basement. She was comfortable enough in her tissue toga at the moment, but she didn ‟ t think she ‟ d be able to sleep very comfortably without a blanket.
    She studied the bench for several moments and finally got up to examine it and the low wall.
    It was certainly tall enough, she decided, to give her a good bit more privacy. The question was, could she lift it and was it too wide to sit on the ledge?
    She would ‟ ve felt better if she ‟ d actually had something to measure it with, but she used her hand and lower arm to take the measure and the index on her other hand to mark the measurement and compared it to the wall.
    Iffy, she thought skeptically, but it looked like it might not be too wide to perch on the wall.
    She thought at first that the damned thing was bolted to the fucking floor, but she finally managed to shove it across the room until it was next to the wall. There was going to be no lifting it dead up. She knew that, but she decided to see if she could lift one end high enough to settle it on the wall.
    She was out of breath by the time she managed it, but she did manage it. Panting for breath, she leaned against the wall to rest, glancing toward the door. A jolt went through her when she saw an alien man standing there but recognition dawned in almost the same moment.
    A thrill of pleasure went through her even to see one face that was just a little familiar and she couldn