'Oh!' she cried.
'Steady,' I said.
'Stop!' she said.
'Very well,' I said.
'No!' she cried. 'Do not stop! Do not stop!' 'Can you stand it?' I asked.
'I do not care if I can stand it or not!' she wept. 'Do it! Do it! Do it to me!'
But I eased her a little.
'What were you doing to me?' she asked. 'Where were you taking me?'
I was silent.
'Take me there,' she wept. 'Take me there, as though in your arms, higher and higher, to dizzying heights of terror, to the clouds, the winds, the sun and beyond, I dependent on you!'
I was silent.
'Force me upward,' she said. 'Drive me there, as though by wings and whips. Show me no mercy!'
'No mercy?' I said.
'I want none!' she wept.
'You will then receive none,' I said.
I then, as she wished, began again to carry her upward. 'Captor!' she wept.
'There is no going back,' I told her.
'This must be what it is to be a slave!' she cried. I was silent.
She was beautiful, sweating, alive, clawing, squirming, in the sand.
'Chains, flowers, fire, helplessness, love!' she wept. 'Love! Love!'
Then she was sobbing, gratefully, and then was lying astonished, sober, in the sand.
'Surely that is what is to be a slave,' she whispered.
'You are still only a free woman,' I said to her. 'Your experience was not conditioned by the categoricality of bondage, by the reality of it, and the slave's knowledge of that reality, by the full belonging of the slave to her master, so to speak, and her understanding, legal, and personal, and such, of that full belonging. Also, it takes time to develop, improve and hone slave reflexes, both specific and totalistic. Slaves grow and improve in such matters.'
'Ohh,' she said, softly.
'But perhaps you understand now,' I said, 'in virtue of this experience which you have had, as rudimentary, or merely indicative, as it may have been, That it may not be only the whip, and such, that explains the slave girl's desire to please.'
'Yes!' she breathed.
'And what is the whip to it?' I asked. 'Very little,' she whispered.
'Yet the whip is real,' I said. 'Yes,' she said.
'Do you doubt it?' I asked. 'No,' she said.
'Nonetheless,' I said, 'your responses, even as a free woman, suggest to me that if you were to become a slave, you would, in time, become a hot slave.'
'A hot slave!' she said, in horror.
'That is the indication,' I said.
'A hot slave!' she said, in fury.
'Yes,' I said.
'But such a slave,' she said, 'is helpless in the arms of men, her responsiveness uncontrollable!'
'It would improve your price,' I said.
She moaned.
'Perhaps you can imagine yourself naked on the slave block, in chains,' I said, 'this excellent feature of yours, considerably enhancing your value, being called to the attention of buyers, and you standing there, naked, in your chains, knowing it was true.'
She shuddered and moaned, in the sand. 'I see you can well imagine it,' I said. We then lay together, quietly.
'If I were a slave,' she said, softly, after a time, 'I could be purchased by anyone.'
'Yes,' I said, 'who could afford your price, and it would not be likely to be high at first, early in your slavery.'
'And I would have to submit to whoever purchased me,' she said.
'Yes,' I said.
'Even if he were hideous,' she said, 'or a despicable weakling.'
'The slave must submit, and with perfection, to any man,'
'Yes,' she said, shuddering, 'she must.'
'And how do you feel now?' I asked.
'Feminine,' she said. 'Very very feminine.'
'I think it is now time that we rested,' I said. I then knelt across her thighs and pulled her hands together behind her back.
'What are you doing?' she asked.
'Tying you,' I said.
The thongs were still about her wrists, with their dangling ends. I tied these dangling ends together, fastening her wrists, thusly, behind her back.
'What you did to me!' she said, suddenly, bitterly.
'Perhaps you learned something about yourself,' I said.
'Do it to me again!' she begged.
'We must rest now,' I said.
I crossed her ankles and encircled them tightly, fastening them together, with some binding fiber, taken from my nearby wallet, that on my belt.
'Oh!' she said, her ankles jerked upwards, and fastened to the thongs holding her wrists together.
I then lifted her by the arms to a kneeling position and put her a bit from me on the sand. I then reclined, on one elbow, some grass about, to rest. I regarded her. She struggled a little, then looked at me, angrily. 'I am helpless,' she said.
'We must rest now,' I said.
'And where am I to rest?' she asked.
'Not in the open,' I said.
'Where then!' she said.
'Over there!' I said, 'in that grass.'
'And have you not forgotten something?' she asked.
'Perhaps,' I said. 'What?'
'How am I to get there?' she asked, ironically.
'On your knees, inch by inch,' I said.
'You are the sort of man who masters a woman, aren't you?' she said.
'Go rest now,' I said. 'We shall be leaving in a few Ahn.'
I watched her make her way inch by inch to the destination I had set for her, and then, there in some grass, fall to her shoulder. I saw her, through the grass, lying tied in the sand, regarding me.
I then rested.
In a few Ahn I awakened.
Shortly thereafter I removed the raft from its hiding place, readied it, putting it half afloat, and made various preparations for departure. I then went to my fair captive and she awakened as I freed her ankles from her wrists. Aside from this, however, she was still bound hand and foot. I put her over my shoulder, her head to the rear, as a slave is commonly carried, and carried her to the raft. I sat her down on the rear of the raft, its forward end half afloat. I then picked up a short, buckled strap, cut from the harness I had worn in drawing the raft through the marsh. I wrapped this twice about her neck, closely, and buckled it shut. I then lifted up one end, the loose end, of a long strap, also part of the harness I had worn in drawing the raft through the marsh, and tied it about both of the turns of the strap on her neck. In this way the interior strap, given the pull of the lead strap, could not close on
