my side.
I heard a noise, and stepped back.
The door opened and the girl, carrying a tray, smiling, entered.
'Mistress is up,' she said. She then set the tray down on the small table. She arranged the articles on the tray, and then brought a cushion from the side of the room and placed it by the table. There was, on the tray, a plate of fruit, some yellow, wedge-shaped bread, and a bowl of hot, rich-looking, dark-brown, almost-black fluid.
'Let me relieve Mistress of the coverlet,' she said, approaching me. I shrank back.
'It is too warm for it,' she smiled, reaching for it.
I again stepped back.
'I have washed Mistress many times,' she said. 'And Mistress is very beautiful. Please.'
I let the coverlet slip to my hips. There was no mistaking the admiration in the eyes of the girl. This pleased me. I let her remove it from me. 'Yes,' she said, 'Mistress is quite beautiful.'
'Thank you,' I said.
She folded the coverlet and placed it on the great couch.
'Susan,' I said. 'That is your name?'
'Yes, Mistress,' smiled the girl.
'What are these rings?' I asked, indicating the heavy ring in the floor, and the two rings in the wall.
'They are slave rings, Mistress,' said the girl.
'What is their purpose?' I asked, frightened.
'Slaves may be tied or chained to them,' said the girl.
'There are slaves, then, in this place?' I asked. This thought, somehow, alarmed me, terribly. Yet, too, at the same time, I found it inordinately moving and exciting. The thought of myself as a slave and what this might mean suddenly Hashed through my mind. For an instant I was so thrilled, so shaken with the significance of this, that I could scarcely stand.
'There are true men in this place,' explained the girl.
'Oh,' I said. I did not understand her remark. Did she not know that true men repudiated their natural sovereignty, forsook their manhood and conformed to prescribed stereotypes? Was she not familiar with the political definitions? I wondered then if there might not be another sort of true men, true men, like true lions, who, innocent of negativistic conditionings, simply fulfilled themselves in the way of nature. Such men. I supposed, of course, could not exist. They, presumably, in the way of nature, would be less likely to pretend that women were the same as themselves than to simply relish them, to keep them, to dominate, own and treasure them, perhaps like horses or dogs, or, I thought, with a shudder, women.
'Would Mistress care to partake now of her breakfast?' asked the girl. I was looking, fascinated, at the heavy ring set in the tiles.
'If Mistress wishes,' said the girl, 'she may tie me to it and whip me.' I looked at her, startled. 'No,' I said. 'No!'
'I shall tidy the room,' said the girl, 'and prepare it for the convenience of Mistress.'
She turned about and went to the side of the room. She began to take articles from the vanity, such as, combs and brushes, and vials, and place them on its surface, before the mirror. She moved with incredible grace.
Glancing in the mirror she saw me behind her, watching her. 'Mistress?' she asked.
'Nothing,' I said.
She continued her work. She straightened pillows at the side of the room. She then went to one of the sliding doors at the side of the room and moved one back a few inches. She reached inside and, from the interior of the door, where it had doubtless been hanging, from a loop on its handle, removed an object. I gasped.
'Mistress?' she asked.
'What is that?' I asked.
'A whip,' she said, puzzled. Seeing my interest she brought it towards me. I stepped back. She held it across her body. Its handle was about eighteen inches long. It was white, and trimmed with yellow beads. Depending from this handle, at one end, were five, pliant yellow straps, or lashes. Each was about two and a half feet long, and one and a half inches, wide.
I trembled.
I could scarcely conjecture what that might feel laid to my body.
'Am I to be whipped?' I asked. I was terribly conscious of my nudity, my vulnerability.
'I do not think so, Mistress,' laughed the girl.
I regarded the whip. I wished that she had been more affirmative in her response.
'Whos whip is it?' I asked.
'Yours, Mistress,' said the girl.
'But for what purpose is it to be used?' I asked.
'It is for whipping me,' she said. 'It is my hope, however, that I will be so pleasing to Mistress that she will not wish to use it, or not often, on me.' 'Take it away,' I said. It frightened me.
The girl went to a wall and, near the large door, by a loop on its butt end, hung it from a hook. I had not noticed the hook before.
'There,' said the girl, smiling. 'It is prominently displayed, where we both, many times a day, may see it.'
I nodded. I regarded the object. There was little mistaking its meaning. 'Susan,' I said.
'Yes, Mistress,' she said.
'Are there truly slaves here, in this place, in this city, or country?' 'Yes, Mistress,' she said, 'and generally.'
I did not understand what she meant by 'generally.'
I felt the warm air on my body. I smelled the perfume, so delicately feminine, which had been put on me.
'You said you had been 'named' Susan,' I said.
'Yes, Mistress,' she said.
'The way you said that,' I said, 'it sounded as though you might have been named anything.'
The girl shrugged, and smiled. 'Of course, Mistress,' she said.
'You are very pretty, Susan,' I said.
'Thank you, Mistress,' she said.
'These other rings,' I said, indicating the rings about the couch, 'are they also slave rings?'
'Yes,' she said, approaching lightly, gracefully, 'in their way, but most of them are only anchor rings, to which, say, chains or cords might be attached.' She then crouched by the heavy ring, that with.coiled chain beneath it, that fastened at what might, perhaps, count as the bottom of the couch. 'But this,' she said, 'more appropriately, is the more typical type of ring which one thinks of as a slave ring. Do you see its resemblance to the others, that in the floor, those at the wall?'
'Yes,' I said.
She lifted the ring. I could see that it was heavy. She then lowered it back into place, so that it again, in its retaining ring, fastened in a metal plate, bolted into the couch, hung parallel to t* he side of the couch. 'By means of such a ring,' she said, 'a male silk slave might be chained at the foot of your couch.'
The girl rose to her feet. 'Surely Mistress is hungry,' she said.
The light from the barred window was behind her. I also saw the shadows of the bars and crosspieces lying across the couch.
I turned and went to the low table where the tray had been placed.
'There are no chairs,' I said.
'There are few chairs in Corcyrus,' said the girl.
I turned to face her, almost in anguish. Something in this place terrified me. 'I have been unable to keep from noticing your garments,' I said.
'Mistress?' asked the girl.
'Forgive me,' I said, 'but they leave little doubt as to your loveliness.' 'Thank you, Mistress,' said the
