'Please do not hurt me, Master,' she said.
It startled me that she had called me `Master,' but then I recalled that she had been given to me for the night. For the night I owned her.
'Get up, Lola,' I said.
She struggled to her feet, frightened. Half crouching over she backed away from me, until she was stopped by the bars, which confined her with me in the cell, one of many such cells deep beneath the House of Andronicus.
I approached her.
She stood straight then, her back against the bars, her head turned. to the side. I realized, suddenly, that she feared to look me in the face.
'I am sorry that I did you such injuries, Master,' she said. I recalled her many cruelties to me in my training, the many lashings of the quirt, the blows of the slave whip she had arranged for me, the blows of her small hands and fists, her kicks, her belittlings of me. I recalled, most of all, how she had spilled the wine in the training session,. had accused me of it, and had prescribed twenty blows of the snake. The Lady Gina had reduced the penalty to only five. Twenty blows of the snake, I had little doubt, might cost some men their lives.
It irritated me that she was not looking directly at me. Angrily, before I had truly thought, I took the sides of her mouth between my thumb and fingers and pressing tightly inwards, which draws the inside of the cheeks painfully between- the teeth, turned her head to face me. I had seen a guard do this once to Tela, when she had not seemed to be paying him attention. This is not an action a woman fights. She complies instantly. I looked at Lola, so held, facing me. She was frightened. But suddenly I saw, too, in her eyes, that she wanted to be had as a slave. It was the first moment in which I had ever dominated a woman as a male brute, her master. I have never forgotten it.
Then, of course, I released her.
'Why did you spill the wine and accuse me of it?' I asked.
'It was a joke,' she whispered.
'Do not lie to me,' I said.
'I hated you,' she said.
'Do you hate me now?' I asked.
'Oh, no, Master,' she said, hastily. 'I love you now. I want to please you. Please be kind to me.'
I sniffed. I did not think that Lola, in her cruelties, or when she had played the cruel trick with the wine, and had prescribed the twenty blows of the snake, had anticipated that she would, one day, be braceleted in my cell, at my mercy as a naked slave girl.
'Why twenty blows of the snake?' I asked. 'Did you wish to kill me?'
'You are strong,' she said, her head inclined a bit downward, but looking up at me. 'Twenty blows would not kill you. It would only have punished you, terribly.'
'You would have had this done,' I asked, 'because you hated me?'
'Yes, Master,' she said. Then she added, hastily, 'But I do not hate you now. I love you now. Please be kind to me, Master.'
'Let me relieve you of the weight of this slave whip,' I said, reaching up to untie it from her neck.
She lifted up her head, her head pressed back against the bars. Her body, her back, too, her lovely shoulder blades, was pressed against them. 'Are you going to use it on me?' she asked.
'I did not hear you say `Master,'' I said.
'Master,' she said, quickly.
I untied the whip from her neck and, taking it, walked back to the table and bench. I put it on the bench. I sat down on the bench. I looked at the girl, standing with her back to the bars.
'Approach and kneel, Slave Girl,' I said.
Quickly she came to the side of the table and knelt down before me.
'Am I to be whipped, Master?' she asked.
'Be silent,' I said.
'Yes, Master,' she said.
I looked at the girl. I felt conflicting emotions. Lola was one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen. She was now kneeling before me, frightened and obedient, naked and braceleted, mine to do with as I pleased. Yes, she had caused me much pain, and had much abused me. Yet, interestingly, the miseries and humiliations which she had inflicted upon me were not uppermost in my mind. It was not that I was unaware that I now had an opportunity to work out a welldeserved revenge upon her beautiful slave hide; it is rather that that thought did not particularly occupy me. It was not, surely, what seemed to me of overwhelming interest and importance in the situation in which I found myself.
I looked at the beautiful, kneeling, braceleted woman. What seemed to me of overwhelming significance was simply this, that such a woman, one who must obey, and who was in my power, knelt at my feet.
'Master,' said Lola.
'Yes,' I said.
'I have not fed since this morning,' she said. 'May I feed?'
I took a piece of meat from the bowl on the table. I held it out to her. 'Thank you, Master,' she said. Then, turning her head delicately, she took it between her teeth. I then, for a time, fed Lola. She depended upon me, in the hours of my ownership of her, for her very food and drink. I could scarcely comprehend the feelings I had, feeding the beauty by hand. I had not realized such feelings could exist in a man. Then I placed the bowl on the floor and she, putting her head down, her hands braceleted behind her, biting and licking, addressed herself to its contents. I looked down at the kneeling, feeding slave. She was in my power. In these hours she was mine. I fought against the incredible surge of power and pleasure I felt, against the power and pleasure of blood and manhood. I fought against might and passion, and glory and joy, for I was a man of Earth. But in those moments, for a brief instant, before I could deplore and castigate my feelings, before I could muster misery and guilt, I had felt what it was to stand, if only briefly, in man's place in the order of nature. I had, for a brief instant, tasted dominance. But then I recalled that I was a man of Earth, and that the world of nature, and what I was and women were, must be rejected and repudiated. Thirsting, I must not drink. Starving, I must not feed. Never should one be true to oneself. Always should one be true to the images and lies of others, fearful ones, weaklings unable to be strong themselves, whose safety lay in the bleeding and tricking of more dangerous beasts. Is it not in the interest of slaves to prohibit kings from claiming their thrones?
Then I was overcome with misery and guilt that I had even dared to think such thoughts!
How wrong nature was! How wrong to be true to the deep themes of the animal kingdom! Did I truly need to be what I was? Why should I fulfill my needs? How wrong it was to have needs! And how far more wrong it would be to dare to fulfill them! Men, I knew, must be as flowers, not as lions, not as men.
But who will tell the lion to be a flower? Surely, only the flowers. And who will tell a man not to be a man? Surely, too, the flowers, who might otherwise fear the tread of the heavy paw, the passing of the foot of the striding warrior.
Then I laughed, for it suddenly seemed to me absurd that such incredible conflicts should rage within me. Surely I, a man of Earth, knew well how to live. I had been taught how to live, and if, in abiding by the denials and negativities of my world, I was made unhappy and miserable, what did that matter, truly, in the larger scheme of things? Who did I think I was? Did I think that I was important? Is a lion, or a man, truly, more important than an insect or a flower? If there were more flowers than lions, or men, must not it be right to be a flower, and not a lion or a man? It may not be easy for lions or men to pretend to be flowers, but let them do their best. Above all do not let the flowers know that there may be a man or a lion among them. They would then be disturbed They would flutter their petals fiercely.
Again I forced Gorean thoughts from my mind.
When I had laughed the girl, feeding, had stopped, and trembled. Then, after a time, she continued to feed.
'Here,' I said. I crumbled the rest of the bread, which I had not eaten, which had been on the table, into her bowl, mixing it with the vegetables and meat which still remained. there. 'Thank you, Master,' she said. She put down her head again, feeding. I smiled. The braceleted, beautiful slave was ravenous.
I had laughed for it had suddenly seemed to me absurd that I should even, for a moment, have allowed
