rope bound about her body, a strap on her wrist, the clasp of slave bracelets, holding her small hands behind her body, the weight of shackles on fair limbs.
“I am pleased you fear the whip,” I said. I was indeed pleased, for in such a case, it need seldom, if ever, be used. To be sure, it is occasionally useful, like a stroke of the switch, to remind a girl that she is a slave. It is well for a girl to never be in the least doubt about that. Even the most loving and kindest of masters will enforce a perfect discipline on his chattel, which reassures her, and to which she is helplessly responsive, sexually and psychologically.
Never let her forget to kneel appropriately, and obey quickly. Never let her cease to be pleasing to her master.
The least imperfection in a slave is not to be tolerated, for she is a slave.
“I do fear it,” she said. “Muchly so, terribly so, dreadfully so.”
“Excellent,” I said.
This is common in a woman whose body is much alive.
“It scalds me, and burns me, and each stroke immerses me in fire,” she said. “It shows me no mercy!”
“Then you would try to be a good slave, would you not?” I asked.
“Yes, yes,” she said, “Master.”
“Good,” I said. “How many strokes did you and Iole receive?”
“Ten,” she said. “And in the end we were helpless in the ropes, unable to stand, our weight on our bound wrists, shuddering, sobbing, our bodies afire, from the encircling tentacles of the lash, scarcely able to breathe.”
“If one of you had seriously injured the other, cost an eye, or such,” I said, “it might have gone seriously with you.”
She shuddered. “Yes, Master,” she said.
“Your discipline,” I said, “was administered by an armsman.”
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“You were courteous enough to thank him, I trust,” I said.
“Yes, Master,” she said. “Suspended in the ropes, in our pain, as we could, we sobbed our gratitude.”
“The common point of a whipping,” I said, “is to improve the slave.”
“I think, Master,” she said, “that we both are now much concerned to be better slaves, and more pleasing to our masters.”
“You were both foolish,” I said, “to try to keep your knees more closely together than prescribed.”
“Each wished to appear superior to the other,” she said.
“Surely you were taught to kneel with your knees apart,” I said.
“Yes,” she said. “But I did not even know that I was a pleasure slave!”
“You know now,” I said.
“But I am white-silk!” she said.
I found this of interest.
“For now,” I said.
“When am I to be opened, who is to open me?” she asked.
“I do not know,” I said. “Perhaps after your sale, by whoever buys you.”
She looked at me, wildly.
How helpless are slaves, as other animals.
“The whip, then,” I said, “after your beating, was pressed to your lips, to be kissed.”
“Yes, Master.”
“And you kissed it?”
“Yes, Master,” she said, “fervently, piteously, hoping that it would strike us no more.”
“I am curious,” I said, “to inquire into a familiar distinction, but now, particularly, in the case of the slave, Alcinoe, a slave of the ship of Tersites.”
“Master?” she said, puzzled.
“You fear the whip,” I said.
“Terribly, Master.”
“You are subject to it,” I said.
“Yes, Master,” she said. “I am a slave.”
“How do you feel about being subject to the whip?” I asked.
“I fear the whip,” she said. “I am terrified of its stroke.”
“Of course,” I said.
This is common with high-grade slaves, delicate, well-formed, finely featured women, women of high intelligence, profound emotion, and active imagination, irremediably sensate, tactually enlivened women, women keenly alive, women profoundly stirred by the floor beneath their knees, by leather thrust to their lips, profoundly responsive to the fingers of a man’s hand on an ear lobe or thigh, women with helplessly sensitive bodies.
Such women, being so desirable, and alive, bring by far the highest prices off the block.
“I dread it,” she said. “I will do anything to avoid its stroke.”
“But,” I said, “how do you feel about being subject to it?”
“Must I speak?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“I love it,” she whispered.
“Speak further,” I said.
“Must I?” she said.
“Yes,” I said.
“It is hard to understand,” she said. “I do not know if a man can understand it.”
“Speak,” I said.
“It is something I became aware of,” she said, “when I first felt certain needs, and feelings, in my body. They were hard to understand. I looked about, and I saw the incredible, mighty differences between men and women, and understood that I, by nature or the will of Priest-Kings, was of that profoundly different sort, the woman. And I wondered why this should be, and what it might mean. How was I to understand it? What did it mean for my sex, and for me, who was of that sex? I felt myself somehow a part of that great difference, and union. Men were so aggressive, so possessive, so ambitious, so powerful, so strong, so proudly, so naturally, so unquestioningly, so intimidatingly so. We, on the other hand, were small, weak, soft, slight, and beautiful. Who was master, who was slave? Was nature to be denied? What of my feelings, my needs? Was I to pretend to be a man, in which sorry pretense I must fail, or should I listen to my heart, and acknowledge my difference? Nay, not only acknowledge this difference, but welcome it, celebrate it, acclaim it, rejoice in it! Is it not as meaningful, as glorious, as right, to be a slave as a master? Is one truly better than the other? Does the slave not need the master, and the master the slave? Is not each incomplete without the other? Of course, I tried to be as a man! I tried to live that mockery, that stunting lie. I sought to stand against them, rather than kneel gratefully at their feet! I flung myself, with like- minded women, into the games of power, exploiting my liberty to narrow and circumscribe that of men. How I thought I hated them, while I really wanted to be put in their chains. I used my sex, as I could, bestowing cordialities, hinting at favors, to influence men who, entrapped in the conventions of the cities, refrained from tearing away my veils and robes and putting me, as I deserved, in the bracelets of a slave. How natural then that they should seek the beauties of the paga taverns, that they should raid far cities to bring back women, much as I, naked, in coffles. How I, and my kind, hated slaves, women in their fitting place in nature, who, in radiance, and contentment, so joyful, were fulfilled by masters! How we envied those degraded, pathetic, despicable things in their tiny tunics, their bodies so bared, and collars, so unslippable, so closely encircling their throats, their thighs marked, as the animals they were, that all would recognize them as the properties of men. How cruel I was to my own slaves, making them suffer in proxy for my own self-hatred. How I kept them from men, that they might howl in anguish, and know something of my own unhappiness and deprivation. Then, to my horror, I found myself in a collar! How I fought the slave in me, until I met a man whose feet I yearned to kiss.”
“You may continue to speak,” I said.
“I am a woman,” she said. “I suppose master cannot understand the rightfulness, the deliciousness, of the feeling that a woman has when she is dominated by a man. She responds, with her whole being, to his domination.
