'You are thus, at the least, an abettor, or accomplice, in such crimes,' he said.
'No!' I said.
'Thus, if only by tacit consent, you, too, are guilty of them,' he said. 'No!' I protested.
'What do you think of the men of your world?' he asked.
'I despise them! They are weaklings!' I cried, suddenly. They deserve to have us take their world from them, to be thrust aside with words and writs, to be superseded by contrived legalities, to be relegated by statutes and slogans to the peripheries of power, to become trammeled, and crippled, as they are advised, as they are castrated, to become nothing, to be deprived of their pride and strength, and thus even of the potentiality of their unused manhood, to take our orders, to obey us!'
'Your position, I take it,' he said, 'is motivated by your hatred, jealousy and envy of men?'
'I do not think so,' I said. 'I do not want to be a man. I want to be a woman. My anger, my frustration, is motivated, I think, not by their manhood, and that I am not a man, as seems to be the case almost universally with the women you despise, if we can believe physicians in the matter, but rather by their lack of manhood, which denies me as well as them, which keeps me form being a full woman.'
'You are a clever slut, in your small way,' he said. 'I never doubted it. How cunningly you would turn things! But I am not deceived by your petty tricks. You envy men, and not being one, would try to destroy them.'
'No!' I said.
'Yes,' he said, 'you are a modern woman, and would, like others, if you could, destroy men. I find you, and others like you, guilty, and grievously guilty, guilty of crimes against the very future of the human race on your world. Here you will discover, however, that men, the men of my world, are not inclined to find this sort of thing acceptable. You will learn here, I fear, that they do not see fit to tolerate such intentions and attempts.'
I trembled.
'Here,' he said, 'my young, lovely, charming pretentious slut, you are going to learn what it is to be a woman, truly. Here, too, by my intent, I having brought you here, it pleasing me, you will in a lifetime of beauty, degradation and service pay for your crimes. Here, modern woman, your being a modern woman will be taken from you. You will henceforth be another sort of woman.'
I looked up at him, frightened.
'We will revenge the men of Earth,' he said.
I put down my head, terrified. I supposed, in some senses, I had been a modern woman, and that I was, in some sense, guilty of crimes. I had little doubt I would be punished. Men would doubtless have their vengeances upon me.
I looked up at my captor.
He had brought me to his place, at least in part, it seemed, out of just such a sense of fittingness, out of just such a sense of rightfulness and justice. 'Good morning, Miss Williamson,' he said.
'Good morning,' I whispered. As he had used my name I was not at all sure it was really mine. It had sounded different, somehow. I suddenly feared that I might have any name, almost like a dog.
How incredibly attractive he was to me! How weak he made me feel!
I thought that I was, as human beings went, quite intelligent, but before this man, before such a man, I sensed that my intelligence was as nothing. I sensed, as I had long before, in the library, that he, in his power, intelligence and maleness, was totally my superior, indeed, that I could at best be little more than an animal at his feet.
'Hold still,' he said. He crouched before me, the whip in his hand. 'What are you going to do?' I asked.
'Position,' said he. I readjusted my position, improving it, kneeling, back on my heels, my back straight, my hands on my thighs, my knees spread.
'What are you going to do?' I asked. My body could still feel, dimly, the hot marks of the lash.
'Put your head down,' he said. 'Farther back.'
I was then looking, in effect, at the beams and plaster of the ceiling. 'This is a test,' he said.
'Ai!' I cried, suddenly, recoiling, jerking back, falling on my side, in a rattle of chain. I was then at the end of the chain, away from him, it taut from the ring, it holding my head forward. I could withdraw no further. I put my knees together, tightly. I put my hands over them. I looked at him in horror. 'Good,' he said. 'It is as I thought.'
I could not believe what he had done.
'You are alive,' he said, coiling the blade back against the staff. 'I had thought you would be. Your body, its curves, suggests a rich abundance of female hormones. Such will put you, of course, more at the mercy of men.'
The touch had been totally unexpected.
'Beast!' I said. 'Beast!'
The touch had been gently, but it had been purposeful. Apparently it had told him what he wanted to know.
'Beast!' I wept.
I had not realized what he was going to do. I had not had an opportunity to prepare myself for the touch, to perhaps steel myself into inertness. I was then suddenly fearful. What is such men simply did not permit a woman to steel herself into inertness, what if it were literally incumbent upon her to feel, and irreservedly, perhaps even under the threat of discipline, of fierce punishment, or worse, in all her hot, sweet, vulnerable openness? As it was, taken unawares, I had been forced to show myself, and before this beast, this lion of a man, responsive. I blushed red, hotly.
He stood up. 'Return here, and kneel,' he said, 'and as you were before.' He indicated the spot, gesturing with the whip, near the ring, where I had knelt. He shook out the blade of the whip.
I hurried, crawling, to the spot, and knelt there, as I had before.
He looked down at me.
'Make me pay,' I whispered.
'What?' he said.
'I am ready,' I whispered.
He smiled.
'I am naked before you,' I said. 'I am on a chain. You have aroused me. You have made me show myself responsive. You have taken all pride from me. You despise me. You hate me. I gather that I am to be made to pay for my crimes, that men here will make me pay for them, for being a modern woman. I am ready to pay. Make me pay.'
'On your back,' he said. 'Throw your legs apart.' Tears in my eyes, I obeyed. 'The modern woman,' he smiled, 'on her back.'
'Where I belong!' I said.
'Or on your stomach,' he smiled, 'or kneeling, bent over, or in any one of a thousand postures of submission and service.'
I shuddered, understanding the sorts of things that might be required of me, and even routinely, on this world.
I closed my eyes. I feared I might swoon at his least touch. I had never met anyone who remotely compared with him. I had not even known such men could exist. To such a man I knew that I, even with all my refinement, education and intelligence, could never be more than a dog, a panting bitch, at his feet. He had ever spoken of a 'collar.' What could he have meant?
I opened my eyes.
'Do you beg?' he asked.
'Would you make me beg?' I cried.
'Yes,' he said.
'Very well,' I wept. 'I beg!'
'The modern woman begs,' he smiled.
'I beg,' I said. 'I am not longer a modern woman.'
'Oh, yes,' he smiled, 'you are still a modern woman, as of now. But, in time, you will no longer be one. In time, that will be taken from you.'
'I beg!' I said. 'I beg!'
