'Slave!' cried the first woman, angrily, to the fifth woman.
'Slave! Slave!' said, too, the second woman to the fifth.
'Come now,' I said to the first and second woman, 'she is not a slavea€”yet. 'Yet!' cried the fourth woman.
Too, I was amused that the first and second woman seemed to think that slaves might bargain. They had a typical free woman's misconception of what was involved in total female slavery. The slave is owned. She does not bargain. She owes all to the master, and gives all to the master. She strives to be fully pleasing, in all ways, and hopes desperately that she will prove so. Perhaps they would learn that sometime.
'I am not like these other women,' said the first woman, suddenly. 'Redeem me! Some women, such as these, doubtless, have made a way of life of what you refer to as tricks. I have not! This is the first time I have ever had recourse to such fraud!'
The other women cried out angrily in their chains.
'Once is enough,' I told the first woman.
'It costs only forty tarsks to redeem me!' she said.
'You would probably bring more than that in a slave market,' I said. 'Please!' she wept.
'I would cost only twenty-seven tarsks to redeem!' called the fourth girl. 'Redeem me,' said the second woman. 'I am of high caste. Consider the glory of redeeming a woman of high caste!'
'The slave,' I said, 'has no caste, no more than a verr or tarsk.' The woman cried out in misery, helpless in the shackles.
'I am shapely, and blond,' said the third woman, suddenly. 'Redeem me!' 'Slave!' chided the fifth woman.
'Slave!' retorted the third.
'I do not want to be a slave!' cried the first woman.
'Obviously you are not a slave,' I said, 'for you have no wish to be pleasing.' 'I have slave needs, I confess it!' cried the fifth woman.
'I find that of interest,' I said.
'I, too, have slave needs!' cried the fourth woman.
I had not doubted that. There was something about her body, which seemed lusciously slavelike.
'I, too!' suddenly wept the third woman. I regarded her. I thought she would indeed move well in a man's bonds.
'But I do want to be pleasing!' said the first woman.
I looked at her.
'Do not consider her,' said the second woman. 'Redeem me! I, too, have slave needs! I confess it! I have slave needs!'
'I, too, have slave needs!' suddenly cried the first woman.
'You?' I asked, as though skeptically.
'Yes!' she wept. 'Yes!'
The first time I had laid eyes on her, of course, I had seen that she was born for silk. 'Let me kiss you!' cried the fifth woman.
The others gasped in astonishment, in anger, in protest, in indignation, in outrage, at her boldness.
'Taste me,' called the fifth woman, enticingly.
'Slut! Slut!' cried the other women.
It had been a slave's invitation. I wondered where the free woman had heard it. Not all free women are as ignorant as many men believe. There had been many indications that the fifth woman's slavery was very close to the surface. To be sure, she may have often fought it. I did not know.
'The eager lips of a free woman await you,' called the fifth woman. I went to stand before the fifth woman and she, pulling at her chains, leaning forward, tried to reach me. I stood there for a moment, she straining toward me, I regarding her, thinking. She looked at me. I now let her wonder, now that she had made her bold overture, if I would choose to accept it. Perhaps, now, to her shame, to her humiliation, before her sisters in custody, her revelatory, astonishing, compromising advance would be rejected. Perhaps, even, she might be cuffed, or mocked. I saw fear in her eyes. So I took her in my arms and put my lips to hers. It began as a free woman's kiss but, as I held her, and pressed her to me, and she then pressed herself to me, it ended as a kiss which, though doubtless still that of a free woman, hinted at unmistakable latencies within her, that she might, under suitable conditions of helplessness and submission, and perhaps proper training, be capable of at least the nearest reaches of the kisses of slaves.
I released her, and she looked at me, shaken. She grasped the chains above the manacles tightly. Then she recovered herself. She released the chains above the manacles and her small hands now appeared as they had before, the clasping iron of the upper part of the shackles close below the fleshy part of her palms, below the thumbs, and at the sides of the hands. She squirmed a little. 'Redeem me,' she said, slyly.
'Taste me!' said the lovely, slighter girl, who was fourth, who had seemed perhaps the quieter of the five. I thought she might go the gentlest, and the most willingly, and the most gratefully, to her chains.
'Slut!' cried the third woman. I then kissed her.
I saw that she would make a superb slave.
'Do you not wish to be redeemed?' I asked her.
'Yes!' she said suddenly. 'Yes, of course!' But I saw she would never be truly happy, except where she belonged, in a collar.
'Me!' said the third woman, suddenly. 'Kiss me, too! Taste me, too!' I gathered that she, too, did not wish to be left out in these competitions. She did not wish to miss her opportunity to see if she might, by the bestowal of her favors, and the promise of such favors, as well, please me, and, by enticement or trickery, inveigle me into purchasing her redemption. I also saw, from her behavior and attitude, that she regarded herself as the most beautiful of the five, and the most likely to succeed in any such contest. Accordingly I gave her little time but merely took her in my arms and unilaterally, forcibly, briefly, crushed her lips beneath mine, and then flung her back against the logs. She looked at me wildly, disbelievingly. Was she not blond? But she would have to learn to please men.
I then stood back, and regarded the three women.
'You have not tasted me,' said the second woman. I think she feared I was pondering a choice among the other there.
I kissed her. I would have to admit it, women kiss well in shackles, even free women. She looked at me. Then, she, too, recovered herself. 'Though I am of high caste,' she said, 'I have permitted you to kiss me, and not merely upon a sleeve or gloved hand, but wholly upon my lips, and not even through a veil, no, upon my exposed and naked lips themselves, unveiled, almost as though I might be a slave! Therefore, in return for this inestimable gift, it is I whom you must now in honor redeem.'
'You are a female,' I said, 'and such are made for the kisses of men.' 'I am of high caste!' she said.
'Perhapsa€”now,' I said. Slaves, of course, are casteless, as are other animals. No longer is one woman divided from another by artificial distinctions. In this sense there is a democracy of slaves. They all begin the same, regardless of previous distinctions, such as position or wealth. They all begin at the same point, as naked women, branded and collared, who must then strive with one another to see who can be most pleasing to masters.
She looked at me in fury.
'Unfortunately,' I said, ' I do not have a slave whip with me.' 'You would beat me?' she asked.
'Of course,' I said.
She shrank back against the logs.
I thought she would look well, in her curves, crawling at the feet of men, reduced to the centrality of her womanhood, the female slave.
I then regarded the four women whose lips I had tasted. Each had, in a sense, though free, prostituted herself to me, that she might thereby influence me to rescue her from her clear and obvious plight, that of a debtor slut. Each was willing to bestow her favors in order to obtain her redemption. These were women, I had gathered, who had made a practice of relying upon the generosity and nobility of men, or of some men, to obtain their way in life, in a sense resorting frequently to types of female fraud, regularly exploiting and, in a sense,
