me, might want it off. I was 'ankleted,' whatever that meant.
'Breathe deeply,' said Teibar. 'Good. Good.'
Taurog released my wrists. He put my hands at my sides. I could not lift them. 'Deeply, deeply,' said Teibar, soothingly.
I felt a key thrust into the lock on the collar I wore. It was then removed from me. I was dimly conscious of Taurog coiling the chain and replacing it in the attachA© case.
'Struggle now, if you wish,' said Teibar, 'slut.'
But I could scarcely move. I could not raise my arms. I could not even bring my hands to the mask, and had I been able to do so, I would have been too weak to push it away. About the peripheries of my vision it seemed dark. It was hot under the tight mask. I felt another drop of liquid within the mask.
'You are ours now, 'modern woman,'' said Teibar.
But I scarcely heard him, or understood him. I supposed, in some sense, I was a 'modern woman.' I remembered, vaguely, that Teibar had said, earlier, that that could be taken away from me. I did not doubt it. Then I lost consciousness.
4 The Whip
I screamed suddenly under it awakening under it startled not believing it not expecting it the suddenness it was like lightning the cracking sound like the sky breaking the snap like fire my body wrenching I pulling upwards the chain on my neck I fell to my side I pulled at the chain then the snap again no no please no so sharp so loud the fire the pain I screamed I was naked the chain cut my neck 'Kneel,' he snarled, 'head to the floor,' I sobbing obeyed. 'So,' said he, 'the modern woman under the whip.'
I trembled, kneeling, my head down, the palms of my hands on the floor. 'Now, slut,' said he, 'your power is gone, all of it, that mistakenly given to you by foolish men.'
I moaned, bent over, small before him, in a position of obeisance to his manhood, in pain.
'Look up,' he said. 'Kneel, kneel straightly. Put your hands on your thighs. Head up. Split your knees. More widely, slut!'
I obeyed.
I was then kneeling before him, straightly, my head up, my hands on my thighs, my knees widely spread, the chain from my collar dangling down before me, between my breasts, I could feel it on my body, and going back, between my knees, to a ring. I was terrified. I thought I must be mad. My body was in pain. There seemed something different here. The air was different, a thousand times, it seemed, cleaner and fresher. I had never known such air existed to be breathed. It made me feel somehow charged and alive. The whip seemed still, hot and terrible, to burn on my body. And something else was different, too, something subtle, something I supposed I might quickly become accustomed to, but that now frightened me, terribly, in its implications. Literally the world had a different feel. Its gravity preposterously enough, seemed less than that with which I was familiar. I dismissed this from my mind as some sort of confusion, or illusion. But I knew that I was in pain, sharp, miserable pain, fiery, burning pain, put on me by a man, and that that was real. Too, I knew I knelt before a man. That, too, was real. I was an educated, civilized woman, a modern woman, I supposed, in some sense, but I found myself kneeling before a man! Too, this startling me, this strangely affecting me, it seemed that this was somehow appropriate for me, that it was rightful for me, that it was where I belonged. I felt incredibly alive, and rightful there. Too, he had whipped me awake. What did that mean? What must be my nature here, then, I wondered, or my condition or status, in this place, that I could be so awakened? Though I was an educated, refined, civilized woman, a contemporary woman, a modern woman, I supposed, in some sense, I had been awakened by a whip! I had felt the lash!
'Where am I?' I begged.
'On my world,' he said, simply.
'Please do not lie to me,' I begged.
'Interesting,' he said. 'Are you accusing a man of lying to you?' He shook out the whip' s coil.
'No,' I said. 'No!' I understood then that sexuality was important in this place, wherever it was, and that we were not of the same sex.
'Ah, I see,' he said. 'Of course. You are merely still simple, and naA?ve. Yes, I suppose it would be hard for you to believe, particularly with your banal, sly, limited, intelligence, my delicious, nasty, little animal.' To my relief he recoiled the whip.
'Your world?' I said.
'Your life is going to be different now,' he said, 'quite different, dramatically different in a number of ways.'
'Your world?' I begged.
'Yes,' he said.
'Another planet?' I asked.
'Yes,' he said.
'You do not seriously ask me to believe that, do you?' I asked.
He shrugged.
'Really!' I said.
'Can you not detect a difference in the atmosphere?' he asked. 'Is it so difficult to detect? Too, can you not, really, at least now, more importantly, sense differences in the gravitational field?'
I shuddered.
'I see that you can,' he said.
'I am now truly on another planet?' I asked.
'Yes,' he said.
I felt faint. For a moment everything seemed to go dark. I wavered. In my heart I knew that what he was saying, incredible though it might seem, despite the startling enormity of it, was true.
'You have many adjustments to make, my pretty little animal,' he said. I looked at him.
'And there is no escape for you,' he said, 'from this world, You are here to stay. It is now your world, as well as mine. You are going to be here, and live on its terms, and exactly so, my modern woman, my hateful little charmer, for the rest of your life.'
'Please, no!' I said.
'Put your hands, clasped, behind the back of your head, and put your head back,' he said.
I did so.
'Farther back,' he said.
I put my head farther back.
'Please,' I said. 'Please!'
He walked about me. 'It is here that sluts such as you belong,' he said.I shuddered, feeling the coils of the whip move on my stomach.
'Yes,' he said, coming around in front of me again, 'I think you will do very nicely.'
'Do?' I said.
'You may resume your original position,' he said.
I returned then to my former position, with my hands on my thighs.
I knelt before Teibar, who had captured me on Earth, making me his prisoner after hours in the very library where I had worked. He was clad now in a tunic. I did not understand this, but it seemed to fit in well with the plain room in which I was confined. That garment, so simple, so physically freeing, so attractive, I supposed, might be congenial to this world, as it had been to several of the worlds of Earth. I suspected it was not untypical of this world. He had strong arms, and strong legs. I was even uneasy looking at him in such a garment. I knew that I had found him physically disturbing, and deeply and profoundly so, even on Earth, and had felt helpless and weak before him, but now those feelings, now that I saw him as he was on his own world, so splendid and powerful, so uncompromising, so fierce, so vital, so masculine, masculine like no man I had ever seen, or had known could exist, seemed multiplied a thousand times. It was like a lion before me, a lion whose teeth could rend me, whose
