“Your first lesson,” Lia started, “is going to be on speaking to your master with respect. I don’t know what kind of language you use with other bitmen, but I am your superior and you will treat me as such.”

Max swallowed hard. Now that he had taken a stand he couldn’t show weakness. “I don’t…” he began, “I don’t care if you kill me or-“

Max was cut off by the tremendous feminine voice.

“Because you are new, I’ll go easy on you this time. But if you are rude to me again, or refuse me in any way…” Lia’s features suddenly became stern. Her eyes acquired a devilish, power-hungry gleam. “You will suffer,” she finished.

Before Max had time to process his renewed fear, Lia turned her back to him in a swift motion and left the room. He noticed for the first time that, unlike he had originally assumed, the place he was in extended beyond the massive room he where he currently sat. He reasoned that giants like Lia would require a lot of living space, but compared to his meager shelters, this room was already incomprehensibly massive. He stood upon a flat wooden surface that gave him a good view of his surroundings, but he could hardly recognize anything he saw. Large wooden and metal structures seemed to grow out of the walls themselves. He imagined that he was in some kind of dungeon, and conceived of how the things around him would be used to torture him. The one thing he couldn’t figure out was that, if this was in fact a dungeon, why was everything so clean?

In the meantime, Lia retrieved a medium-sized bowl from an adjacent room. Before things would go any further, she needed to have him cleaned. His earlier outburst had given her the idea she was about to execute. In one action, she would establish her dominance and wash the filth away from him.

Moments later, Lia returned with the bowl and approached one of the large metal structures Max had noticed earlier. She turned a large handle and water began to flow out of a metal tube. Max was astounded. He knew the giants had technology you could only dream of, but what he had just witnessed was a casual act of gods. To summon water from nowhere was such an incredible achievement he could hardly believe his eyes. His amazement turned slowly to anger at the fact that the giants kept such technology to themselves. How many times had he or his friends nearly perished searching for water to bring back to the village? How many had met their ultimate end for want of the precious resource? He glared at the machine, and then the giant, in helpless anger.

When the bowl was nearly full she brought it to where Max was. For a moment, they just looked at each other. She smiled. “Bath time,” she said.

Her hand reached out with astonishing speed and hoisted Max until the air. He had resolved to face whatever punishment she had for him with stoic defiance, but he let out an involuntary scream as he plunged into the air. An instant later, the hand, and him along with it, were submerged in water. He struggled for all he was worth, but could do nothing in the face of her overwhelming power. He held his breath for thirty seconds, then forty, then fifty. It finally occurred to him that she was going to drown him. How foolish he was to throw his life away as he had! You couldn’t fight giants, everyone knew that. He struggled some more as he began to run out of air. How long had it been? Ninety seconds? One hundred? He felt his lungs complaining for air but receiving water instead. “What a horrible way to die,” he thought, perhaps, as his final thought.

Just as he was sure he could take no more, the giant hand lifted him out of the water. He gagged and gasped for air as she set him back down on the counter. She spoke while he recovered.

“You’re even weaker than I imagined. That was barely a minute.”

Max made no response as he continued to empty his lungs of liquid.

“Get as much air as you can. We’re not done yet.”

In between pants he moaned with despair. “Not… again,” he struggled, “I’ll… die.”

She smiled at this. Over the next several minutes she waterboarded him twice more, allowing small intervals for him to catch his breath. By now she had mixed in soap, which to Max did meant little but the unfamiliar flavoring as he swallowed water by the mouthfuls. By the end of his third session he was weeping and begging for mercy.

“I’ll do anything,” Max had offered. “I’ll be your slave. I’ll be whatever you want. Please stop hurting me. Please.” This pleased her.

“But I’m not hurting you Max,” Lia answered, “you are hurting yourself. I just wanted to make you nice and clean. All you have to do is so me some respect, and the pain will go away.”

“Yes!” he said. “I respect you, I really do. I promise.”

“That makes me happy Max,” she said, “but how will I know you respect me if you keep being rude?”

“I… I don’t… I could,” he struggled as he searched for the desired answer.

“I have some ideas,” she continued, “when we respect people we refer to them with the proper titles at all times. If you want to show me respect, you will call me ‘Mistress’ or ‘Miss Lia’.”

“Yes… Miss Lia.”

“You will also,” she added, “do what I say, when I say it. Disobedience is the worst disrespect of all.”

“Yes, Miss Lia,” he answered, defeated.

“Good, you are learning quite well,” she sang. “Now, let’s get you dried off, and then we can have some fun.”