pressed in the robes.
'I would not advise it,' I said.
'Oh?' she asked.
'There is nowhere to run,' I said.
She walked angrily to the other side of the lodge, and then turned to face me, her bound wrists held then at her waist. She was beautiful. 'It is true,' she said, angrily. 'There is nowhere to run,' she looked down, at her left thigh. 'I am even branded,' she said, 'like an animal.'
'Like the animal you are,' I said.
'Yes,' she said, bitterly, '-like the animal I am.'
'Kneel,' I said, indicating a place before me, before where I sat, cross-legged, on the robes.
'Back on your heels,' I said, 'with your knees widely spread.'
She complied.
'Put your shoulders back,' I said. 'Thrust your breasts out. Hold your wrists at your waist.'
She complied.
I examined her. She was not only beautiful. She was very beautiful.
'This is my reality, isn't it,' she said, 'that of a slave, at the bidding of men.'
'Yes,' I said. 'It is.'
'May I lower my wrists?' she asked. 'May I close my knees?'
'Yes,' I said. Swiftly, she did so.
'I did not think that Canka would beat me,' she said.
'Why not?' I asked.
'I thought he liked me,' she said. Her wrists looked well, bound, atop her closed thighs.
'I suspect he does,' I said.
'He beat me,' she said, poutingly.
'You are a slave,' I explained.
'I thought he liked me,' she said.
'I would suppose that he does,' I said. 'Hitherto, at any rate, he has treated you with great lenience. That, in my opinion, was a mistake on his part. That lenience, if I am not mistaken, you will discover to have vanished. You will now discover, if I am not mistaken, that your life in his lodge will now be rather different.'
'Different?' she asked.
'The discipine to which you will now find yourself subjected, I suspect,' I said, 'will leave you little doubt as to your bondage. It will be unswerving, precise and exact. If you deaprt from the narrow line of slave perfection by so much as a hort you may expect a cuffing, or the lash.'
She looked at me, with horror.
'In short,' I said, 'you will be subjected to exactly the sort of discipline which women such as you want, and need.'
She put her head down, angrily. She moved her wrists in the unyielding bonds.
'How do you feel about Canka?' I asked.
She lifted her head, angrily. 'I hate him!' she said. 'He beat me!'
'Yes, he did,' I said, 'and well.'
'I hate him!' she said.
'You wanted him to beat you,' I said.
'But I did not think he would!' she said.
'You were mistaken,' I said.
'Yes,' she said, 'I was mistaken.'
'An interesting, if painful experiment, on your part, Winyela,' I observed.
'I did not really think of it as an experiment,' she said, 'at least no consciously, or fully consciously.'
'But it seems, rather clearly, to have been one,' I said.
'Perhaps,' she said.
'I do not think it will be necessary to repeat it,' I said.
'No,' she said, shuddering, 'no.'
'What have you learned from your little experiment?' I asked.
'That I am truly a slave,' she said.
'And what else?' I asked.
'That my master is stong,' she said.
'I do not think you will be permitted, from now on, to get away with any nonsense,' I said.
'No,' she said. 'I do not think so.'
'It must be a very frightening thing, to belong to a strong master,' I said.
'Yes,' she said.
'But then a true slave would not wish it any other way,' I said.
'No,' she said. 'That is true.'
'You are satisfied, now,' I asked, 'that the uncompromising and categorical domination for which you yearn will be applied to you?'
'Yes,' she said.
'That you are truly Canka's slave?'
'Yes,' she said. 'But I am afraid now that he may not like me any longer, that I may have irritated or offended him.'
'As you hate him,' I said, 'what does it matter?'
'Hate him?' she asked. 'I love him. I Love him, more than anything!'
'But he beat you,' I said.
'I was an errant slave,' she said. 'Of course I would be punished!'
'I see,' I said.
'but I am afraid he does not like me any longer,' she wept.
'Why?' I asked.
'He was cold to me,' she said.
'He was probably angry,' I said.
'Do you think he will give me away?' she asked.
'I do not know,' I said.
She put down her head, sobbing. She was only an article of property. She could change hands as easily as a pair of moccasins or a kaiila. 'I displeased him,' she said. 'How absurd and stupid I was.'
'Does Canka know that you are here?' I asked.
'Yes,' she said.
'Were you ordeed to report here?' I asked.
'I had to talk to someone,' she said. 'I would have come anyway.'
'Were you ordered to report here?' I asked.
'Yes,' she said. I had thought that that might be the case.
'Why?' I asked.
'He has set me an addition punishment,' she said, straightening her body, putting back her shoulders, thrusting out her breasts, sucking in her gut, kneeling back on her heels, spreading her knees widely, and lifting her crossed, thonged wrists to her waist, '-Master.'
I let her retain this posture, that she might fully understand it.
'I note that your wrists are bound,' I said.
'Yes,' she said.
'I had thought that that might be only a bit of extra discipline,' I said. 'I had not known, earlier, from your behavior, that you had been sent to report to this lodge.'
She put her head down.
'You wished to talk,' I said.
'Yes,' she whispered.
'That is permissible,' I said.
