'Yes, Master, now, Master,' she said.
'What do you want to do, more than anything?' I asked.
'To please men,' she said.
'What man?' I asked.
'Any man, Master,' she said.
'I think she may be permitted to live,' I said.
'I think so,' said a fellow.
'Yes,' said another.
She began to tremble. I did not think her arms and legs would support her. 'You may break position,' I informed her.
Immediately she went to her belly before me, and reached to my ankle, and put her lips over my left sandal, pressing her lips to it.
'Do you think you will see your friends again?' I asked.
'I hope so, Master,' she said.
'And how do you think they will find you?' I asked.
'They will find me a slave,' she said.
'And how do you think you will find them?' I asked.
'I do not know, Master,' she said.
'I think you will also find them slaves,' I said.
'Yes, Master,' she said.
'Do you think that it might be well for the men of Ar to be put to the sword?' I asked.
'No, Master,' she said. 'It is rather that women such as I should be put to the sword of their manhood.'
'Even if it should make them proud and powerful, and great?' I asked.
'It is hard for this humble slave to believe that her use, and the use of such as she, the use of meaningless chattels, should have so great a consequence, but, if it be so, then surely that would be an additional joy to me, and to my sisters in bondage.'
'Even should it inevitably plunge you deeper and more irrevocably into your servitude, ensuring that it will become even more uncompromising and absolute?'
'Yes, Master,' she said. 'I now wish to live for the chain, the whip, and love.' I looked down at her.
'I beg you to buy me!' she suddenly wept.
'You beg to be purchased?' I said.
'Yes, Master,' she said. 'I beg it!'
'Interesting,' I said.
'Surely it is permissible for me to so beg. Indeed, it is fitting for me, as I am a slave.'
'And it is just today, I gather,' I said, 'that you have learned this, that you are a slave.'
'No, Master,' she said. 'I have known it for years, in my most secret heart. It is only that it is today, on this day, that I first admitted it to myself. It is only today that I ceased to lie to myself, that I ceased to be at war with myself. It is only today, today, that I ceased to pretend to be something which I knew I was not. It is only today that I have admitted to myself, honestly and openly, what I am.'
'Bring her tunic,' I said to a fellow.
He picked up what was left of it.
She looked up from my feet, frightened. 'Surely you will keep me, or buy me!' she said.
'No,' I said.
'But it is to you, or to one such as you that I must belong!' she wept.
I did not speak.
'It is for such as you that women such as I exist!' she wept.
I did not speak.
'Without one such as you,' she wept, 'I cannot obtain my happiness, my completion, my fulfillment!'
I remained silent.
'I am at your feet!' she wept, 'branded, collared, legally enslaved! I am helpless! Take pity on me! Surely you will not deny me the fulfillments of my condition!'
'Kneel,' I said. 'You will return to your master.'
She screamed in misery. 'Woe!' she wept. 'This is my punishment, more grievous than the leather!'
'But he is kind, noble, liberated and enlightened,' I reminded her.
'Woe!' she wept. 'Woe!'
'Be the most abject and loving of slaves,' I said. 'Crawl at his feet. Weep for his mercy. Beg to serve him in the most intimate modalities of the slave girl.'
'But he would lift me from my knees and chide me for my needs,' she said. 'He wants me to act like a man! I think he may want to relate a man, truly, but is afraid to do so. So he wants me to pretend to be one, or be like one. I do not know. I think he is afraid of a true woman, and what she is like. Perhaps he fears he is not man enough to satisfy here in the full spectrum of her needs, in her subtlety, depth and complexity. I do not know! Perhaps he is only weak, perhaps he is one of only infrequently active and diminutive drives. Perhaps he is emotionally shallow, unready to sound the depths of oceans, to measure the heights of a hundred skies. Perhaps it is all very simple. Perhaps he only lacks health, or virility, through no fault of his own. I do not know! Whatever it is, please do not send me back to him!'
'You will relate to him differently than you ever have before,' I said. 'Utterly differently. You will now be to him a true and perfect slave girl. You will be docile, dutiful and hardworking. You will serve, and be eager to serve, in all things. You will present yourself before him as a female slave, and crawl to him, the whip in your teeth. Surely he will understand this. You will petition to serve his pleasure, you will beg to squirm for him, and as the insignificant and meaningless slut, a mere slave, you now are.'
She looked at me, clutching the remains of her tunic before her.
'I shall do as you say, Master,' she said.
'And you may discover he is not the weakling you think,' I said. 'And you may find he will take the whip from your teeth and perhaps stand over you and howl with pleasure, sensing the joy of the mastery. You may even be struck with it, as he takes control of you, for the first time. Yes, you may even be put under the lash, that he punish you for what you have denied him before, and that he confirm upon you, and you be instructed in, and fully, the new relationship in which you stand to him.'
'But what if he is weak?' she begged.
'Continue to serve him, in the fullness of your slavery, begging him for the least of his kisses, the most casual of his caresses.'
'Yes, Master,' she said, tears in her eyes.
'Even such small attentions, as you will discover, now that you have become sensitized to your slavery, will be precious to you.'
'Yes, Master,' she said.
I did not doubt but what she would soon be feeling the fullness of her needs, now that they were in the process of being liberated. In the pens it is not unusual for girls to bleed at the fingernails, from scratching at the walls of their kennels, or to bruise their lovely bodies against the bars of their cages, trying to reach out to a guard, it only to touch his sleeve. Sometimes a girl is deprived of attention for two or three days before her sale, that she will show well on the block, her body, and person, and aspect a helpless, piteous plea of need.
'If he continues to be inert,' I said, 'if he cannot be awakened or aroused, or fears to be, or does not wish to be perhaps because of hostility toward you, or toward women, generally, he will presumably grow uneasy with you in the house and give you away, or sell you. Perhaps he will even trade you for a less needful woman, or one more in accord with his needs, whatever they might be.'
'But what if he is stupid?' she asked.
'Beg him then to sell you, or give you away,' I said, 'that you may, if only in being sold off the block, come into the collar of another, one capable of satisfying what you are, a slave.'
'But what if he will not sell me, or give me away?' she said. 'What if he insists on keeping me, as he is, and as I now am? What if he will keep me only according to his own rules, and lights, and keep me from myself, denying me to myself, frustrating my deepest and most profound need, as I am? 'Then,' said I, angrily, 'that is how
