is easy to see why you would not give the least thought to letting us out of our collars. You want us in them, and we will be kept in them. Indeed, who but a fool would free a slave girl?
Deny this, if you wish, but I have discovered, on your world, that such as I are not only accepted, as your other animals, but are, in a way, prized. Surely you are aware of the jokes, the songs. Certainly we are muchly sought for? Is it not for us that citadels are stormed and caravans raided, that we may be coffled and led naked to your markets? Surely you cannot deny our importance, negligible though we may be? Are we not somehow special amongst your animals, though we commonly sell for less than a sleen, and dozens of times less than a tarn? I think so. And I do not think you would wish to do without us. No. Are we not well worked, and are we not beautiful? And you find many uses for us, to which we are put.
Sometimes I marvel at your world.
Here, as not on my former world, the slavery of such as I is not questioned. Its utility, value, naturalness, and appropriateness is accepted, and understood. In a natural order, a natural order refined and enhanced with the rituals, customs, and institutions of civilization, would there not be such as we? Is it not the natural right of a natural master, that he should have a slave, or slaves? And is it not the natural right of the natural, needful slave, that she should kneel to her master? What begins in the caves, with fastenings formed from the sinews of beasts, may flourish in the boulevards, where delicate, graceful bracelets may confine the small wrists of women behind their backs.
We are subject to your whips, and wear your chains.
Surely that is obvious.
But is our lot so miserable?
Men and women are different, very different.
Surely you know that.
Here women such as I find ourselves a very real part of a very real world.
Here we know who we are, and how we must be.
Here we have a role and an identity, to be sure one inescapable and imposed upon us, whether we will have it so or not, for we are only animals, only slaves. But consider us, if you will, and our natures, though one need not consider a slave. Do you think slaves do not have natures, even though their natures may be scarcely worth noticing, and despicable?
We do have our natures.
Do you think all gratification, or fulfillment, is on the side of the master? It is not. Why are we commonly so radiant, so content? Have you not wondered how that could be? Many of us, once embonded, once brought to the feet of a man, find ourselves. Enslaved, we learn we are of the slave sex. We then desire, with all our heart, to be slaves, worthy slaves of our masters. Can you, who are free, understand that? I suspect your free women can. Perhaps they awaken, sweating and screaming, in the night.
Your world is a natural world, on which exist dominance and submission, and I have learned that I am not dominant. To be sure, I knew this even on my world, a world in which such things are clearly recognized, in all their obviousness, but denied. They are not denied here, as I learned, on my knees, looking up, into the eyes of masters.
Some are slaves, and some masters.
Why should the slave not be a slave, and the master a master?
How long we waited for our masters! How we need our masters! How precious are our masters, and how we, trembling, hasten to serve them, to please them, and as a slave!
I, for one, am content. I belong in my collar. Keep me in it.
And yet, too, I am only a slave, and sometimes tremble in terror. We cannot choose our masters. We may be bought and sold, exchanged and bestowed, wagered and stolen. We may be ignored, despised, and beaten. Who knows to whose whips we must press our lips obediently?
I was taken in the parlor of the house.
I was summoned downstairs by a man’s voice. I descended the stairs, frightened. But surely these were workers, summoned by Mrs. Rawlinson. But where was she? I shook my head. It was in the late afternoon, in the fall. I remember how the light came through the windows. Somehow, unaccountably, I had fallen asleep after lunch. Where was Mrs. Rawlinson? Where were my sorority sisters? The house, a large house, seemed empty.
Then I was suddenly very afraid, for I was now sure it was empty. I could not run past the men, and one of them was behind me. Another blocked the stairs.
“Who are you?” I asked, pleasantly enough. “What are you doing here? May I help you?”
Three of the men arranged chairs before me, the backs of the chairs facing me. They sat on the chairs, their arms on the backs, regarding me.
I stepped back a pace or two.
Where were my sisters? Where was Mrs. Rawlinson?
On one side of the room, a lamp had been overturned. Here and there, oddly, some lengths of ribbon lay on the carpet, red ribbon, white ribbon.
“What do you want?” I asked. “Doubtless Mrs. Rawlinson, she is the house mother, summoned you, but for what purpose I do not know. I think the house is in order. It is in order, as far as I know. She is not here now. She will doubtless be back later. May I help you? You could come back later.”
“Remove your clothing, completely,” said a man, he in the center chair.
I looked at him, disbelievingly.
“Must a command be repeated?” he asked.
I looked about, wildly.
There was something familiar about this question. It seemed I had heard something like this before, or read something like this, at one time or another.
I put my hand before my mouth.
“No one will hear you,” said a fellow.
I looked at the fellow in the center chair, he whom I took to be their leader.
“Now,” he said.
I remembered then where I had come upon that question. It had occurred in one or more of the books I had read, those compromising books which Mrs. Rawlinson had confiscated.
It was a Gorean question.
And I knew the sort of person, a female person, to whom such a question was likely to be addressed. Such persons were expected to comply with commands instantly and unquestioningly. Failure to do so, I suspected, was unwise.
I reached to the top button on my blouse.
“Who are you?” I asked.
In a few moments I stood naked before them.
“Stand straighter, and turn about, slowly, and then face us, again,” said their leader.
“What do you think?” asked the leader, of one of his confederates.
“Forty, perhaps sixty,” said the fellow.
I understood nothing of this.
“Back toward us,” said the leader, “your wrists crossed behind your back.”
I did so, and, shortly, with two or three encirclements of cord, snugly knotted, my wrists were tied behind my back.
I remembered the words, ‘forty, perhaps sixty,’ and gasped. This must stand for forty, or sixty, thousand dollars. I suspected then that I was to be taken to the Middle East, and would be destined for some rich man’s harem.
I struggled, futilely.
The leader came about, and stood before me. He held a generous length of ribbon, silken ribbon, in his hand, some feet in length. He wound this twice about my throat, and then knotted it, closely, under my chin. He jerked the knot tight. I felt the pull against the back of my neck. The ribbon was white.
“You are white-silk,” he said.
In my reading I recalled the significance of white-silk, but how could they know that I had not been “opened for the pleasure of men,” that I was a virgin? Then I remembered my strange dream, of several days ago, after the
