Ginger and Evelyn had identified the animals for them. They had also informedthem that, many towns, such an animal might, in a market, bring than theythemselves.
'I am the she-tarsk!' she said. 'I am the slave!'
'Do you think that you are important?' I inquired.
'No, Master,' she said.
'There, you see,' I said.
'Yes,' she said, 'I see.' She lay back, angrily.
There was a narrow rim of light in the east now. The air was still damp, andchilly.
'Do you respect me?' she asked.
'No,' I told her.
She gasped, in misery.
'Kiss me,' I told her, 'fifty times, and well.'
'Yes', Master,' she said, and began to kiss me about the face and neck. Icounted the kisses. There were fifty of thenThen she lay down beside me.
'You used me well, earlier,' she said.
'You are a mere slave,' I said. 'It is simple to use a mere slave well.'
'Doubtless girls such as myself are often well used,' she said.
'Yes,' I said.
'And, we must submit, unquestioningly, to even our most brutal usage,' she said.
'Of course,' I said. 'Are you distressed?'
'No, Master,' she said. 'Not really. It is only that I am not used to being ananimal, a slave.'
'I understand,' I said.
'In your use of me,' she said, 'you did not give me not even for your use ofme.'
'No,' I said.
'Was that deliberate?' she asked.
'Yes,' I said.
'A clever way to make clear to me that I was only fondled animal, helpless inyour arms.
I did not speak.
'I can scarcely begin to cope with my feelings,' she said 'They are so troubled,so tumultuous.'
'Speak,' I said.
'I must lie there,' she said. 'I could not escape. I must submit!'
'Yes,' I said.
'I was controlled. I was owned!'
'Yes,' I said.
'I was powerless,' she said. 'How you dominated me!'
'You were used with great gentleness,' I said, 'though also, to be sure, withfirmness and authority, as befits a slave As for domination, you cannot yet evenbegin to suspect what it is for a woman to be dominated by a master.'
'She would be so owned,' she whispered.
'Yes,' I said.
'Can you understand my feelings of utter helplessness, and humiliation?' sheasked.
'I think so,' I said.
'I have other feelings, as well,' she whispered.
'What?' I asked.
'I cannot believe how I yielded in your arms,' she whispered.
'You are merely a slave who yielded,' I said. 'You have not yet begun to learn,as a slave, what is the nature of true slave yieldings.'
'Doubtless I will be taught,' she said.
'You are beautiful,' I said. 'It is not unlikely.'
'I had never dreamed that sensations such as you induced in me could exist,' shewhispered.
'They were largely the result of your own initial responsiveness,' I said, 'plusthe fact that you realized you were I a slave. They cannot even form a soundbasis, I would suppose, on which you could begin to even remotely conjecture thenature of the feelings and sensations which lie before you. Beyond thesensations which you have hitherto experienced lie infinite horizons.'
'I am afraid,' she said.
'To your feelings of humiliation and helplessness, then, I said, 'we may alsoadd the emotion of fear.'
'But I have other emotions, other feelings, too, Master,' she said.
'Oh?' I asked.
'Yes, Master,' she said.
'What?' I asked.
'Eagerness,' she said, 'pleasure, curiosity, excitement, sensual arousal, adesire to please, a desire to serve, a desire to be owned and mastered, a desireto be true to my basic and radical femaleness.'
'I see,' I said.
'Never before tonight,' she said, 'have I, now only a nameless slave, felt somuch in contact with my femininity. I have learned tonight that being a woman isa real thing to be. It is not a biological triviality. It is not aninsignificant, regrettable concomitant of a genetic lottery. It is somethingreal and important in itself, something precious and wonderful' I agree,' I said.
'And it is not to be a man,' she said.
'No,' I said. 'I do not think so.'
'Strange,' she said, 'that I should have learned this only stripped, and in thearms of a master, and on a world far from my own.'
Oft is not strange that you should learn this on a world far from your own,' Isaid, 'for your world is like a distorting lens, perverting even the mostconspicuous lineaments of biological reality, nor is it strange that you shouldlearn it as a stripped slave. Your stripping, particularly as it was done by aman, or at the command of a man, should put you in touch with certain femalerealities, such as your beauty, and its softness, and its subject ability tomale domination; it should also, through exposure, and through various, subtleskin stimulations, heighten your vulnerability and sensitivity; this will enableyou to feel more keenly and enable you to understand, more clearly, certainbasic truths, such as the differences between men and women, and that you,whatever you are, are not a man.'
'Yes, Master,' she said.
'Lastly, and most importantly,' I said, 'you find yourself a slave. Femaleslavery is the institutionalized expression, in a civilization congenial tonature, of the fundamental biological relationship between the sexes. In theinstitution of female slavery we find this basic relationship recognized,accepted, clarified, fixed and celebrated. A civilization, you see, need notinevitably be a conflict with nature. A rational, informed civilization caneven, in a sense, refine and improve upon nature; it can, so to speak, bringnature to fruition. Indeed, a natural civilization might be the naturalflowering of nature itself, not an antithesis to nature, not a contradiction tonature, not a poison nor a trammel to it, but a stage or aspect of it, a formwhich nature itself can take.
'I fear even to understand such thoughts,' she said, 'let alone consider whetheror not they might be true.'
'Consider the case of the female slave,' I said. 'She was once a primitive,brutish female, innocent of legalities but, in effect, owned. She is now,commonly, a collared, imbonded beauty, properly marked as merchandise,effectively displayed and marketed, and owned in the full right of law.'
'Yes, Master,' said the girl.
'Who can doubt but what here civilization, as nature's refinement or expression,has wrought an improvement?'
'Surely, no one, Master, ' whispered the girl.
'Too, you will note that civilization has increased the control of the girls andthe effectiveness of bondage, the marking, the identification of masters, thepapers of sale, and so on. Escape, then, for all practical purposes, becomesimpossible.'
