"Yes," said Imnak.
"Imnak is a lazy fellow! Imnak is a terrible hunter! I am fortunate not to be Imnak's woman. Pity the poor woman who goes to Imnak's tent! I am pleased that I am not going to his tent! I would not go to his tent for anything!"
"I have had enough," said Imnak suddenly.
"A man does have his pride," I said.
"It is unfortunate that I am so shy," said Imnak between gritted teeth.
"Yes," I said, "that is unfortunate."
Suddenly Imnak threw back his head and howled at the sky. He made a wild animal noise and, wheeling about, in his fur boots, sped rapidly back toward the tent of Kadluk.
"Let us continue on," I said to the girls. We continued on, toward Imnak's tent, not looking back. The snow sleen padded along behind us, drawing the sled over the trodden turf.
Behind us we heard cheering.
We did not look back until we came to the threshold of Ininak's tent.
A large crowd was approaching, yet in such a way as to give Imnak room. Leading the crowd, but seeming half in the midst of it, came Imnak. He was pulling a bent over, stumbling, screaming, fighting figure behind him, his hand in her hair. She wore feasting clothes.
At the opening to his tent he threw her over his shoulder. Her feet were then off the ground, and she was helpless. She could be carried wherever he chose, and placed wherever he chose to place her. He carried her inside the tent, and threw her to the furs at his feet.
She looked up at him in fury. She tried to get up, but he pushed her back down.
"You are wearing feasting clothes," he said. "Do you think you are going to a feast?"
She looked up at him.
"No," he said, "you are not going to a feast. You do not need to wear feasting clothes."
"Imnak," she said.
"Take them off, everything!" he said.
"Imnak," she cried.
"Now!" he said.
Frightened, she stripped herself, and crouched on the fur in his tent. Nudity is not unusual among the red hunters. But even for them it is a treat to see a girl as pretty as Poalu stripped naked. I suspected that we would have numerous guests in the house of Imnak.
Imnak then bound her wrists together before her body and pulled her to her feet. "Imnak!" she cried. He pulled her from the tent, stumbling, to the pole behind the tent, that from which tabuk meat was sometimes hung to dry. A few days ago Arlene had been tied to the pole. Imnak fastened Poalu's hands over her head and to the pole.
"Imnak!" she cried. "What are you going to do?"
Imnak, who had returned to the tent after fastening her in place, returned to the pole. He carried a sleen whip.
"Imnak," she cried, "what are you going to do?"
"Only one can be first," cried Imnak.
"Imnak!" she cried, struck.
The hunters and the women gathered about cheered Imnak on. He put the leather to her well.
Then she cried out, "It is Imnak who is first in his tent!" She shuddered in the straps that bound her. Then she was struck again. "Imnak is first!" she cried. "Imnak! Imnak!"
He thrust the whip in his belt.
He went before her, where she could see him. "You are first, Imnak," she wept. "I am your woman. Your woman wrn obey you. Your woman will do what you tell her."
"No, Imnak!" she cried.
"Aiii," cried a man in the crowd.
He tied bondage strings on her throat.
The men and women in the crowd roared their approval. They stomped on the turf. Some began to sing.
None, I think, had thought to see so rare and delicious a sight as bondage strings on the throat of the arrogant, fiery Poalu.
Her temper and sharp tongue, I think, had made many enemies among the red hunters and their women. There were few there I think who did not relish seeing her in bondage strings. She might now be beaten with impunity, and must obey free men and women.
"Now," said Kadluk, her father, "you will not come running home to the tent."
He rubbed his nose affectionately on the side of her face, patted her on the head and turned away.
"Father!" she cried.
"Do I hear the wind?" he asked, his back to her.
"Father!" she cried.
"Yes," he said, "I hear the wind." Then he left.
Indeed, she could not now go running home to the tent of her father. Imnak, if he wished, could slay her for such an act. She wore bondage strings.
The crowd began to dissipate, leaving Imnak and Poalu much alone.
"Why have you done this to me, Imnak?" asked Poalu.
"I wanted to own you," he said.
"I did not know a man could want a woman so much that he would want to own her," said Poalu.
"Yes," said Imnak.
"I did not know you would be strong enough to own me," she said.
"I am strong enough to own you," he said.
"Yes," she said, "it is true. I see in your eyes that it is true."
He said nothing.
"And you will own me?" she asked.
"Yes," he said.
"It is a strange feeling, being owned," she said. Imnak shrugged.
"I have loved you since we were children, Imnak," she whispered. "I have thought for years that I would someday be your woman. But I did not think, ever, that I would be your beast." She looked at him. "Will you truly make me obey you, Imnak?" she asked.
"Yes," he said.
She smiled. "Your beast is not discontent," she said.
He touched her softly with his nose about the cheek and throat. It is a thing red hunters do. It is a very gentle thing, like smelling and nuzzling.
Then his hands were hard on her waist.
She looked up at him. 'The lamp must be lit," she said, "and the water heated, that I may boil meat for supper."
"Supper may wait," he said.
He began to caress her, with tender, powerful caresses, gentle yet strong, possessive, commanding, as one may touch something which one owns and loves.
She began to breathe more swiftly. "Imnak," she whispered, "you may do what you want with a beast, and a beast must do, fully, what you want."
"That is known to me," he said.
"Oh, Imnak!" she cried. "Please! Please!"
Then her hands were untied from the pole, and freed, and she knelt at his feet. At his gesture, she, frightened, pressed her lips to his boots, and then looked up at him, waiting to be commanded.
He indicated that she should crawl to the tent. She did so, and he walked behind her, the whip now loose in his hand. I saw him thrust it, crossways, between her teeth and throw her back to the furs. She looked up at him, the whip clenched, in her teeth. This is a device which helps to keep a slave girl quiet in her ecstasies. She can then do little more than gasp and squirm.
Imnak looked about, and drew shut the flaps of the tent.
I gather that, later, he had, mercifully, removed the whip from her mouth, for I heard from the tent's interior the delicious ear-shattering scream of a slave girl yielding to her master.
Thimble and Thistle looked at one another. I saw in their eyes, though doubtless neither would have confessed it to the other, that they wished, each of them, that it was they, and not the new girl, in the arms of the male.
Arlene timidly reached forth to touch me. "Master," she said.
"Do you beg it?" I asked.
"Yes, Master," she said, "Arlene begs it. Arlene, who is your slave, begs it with all her heart."
"Very well," I said.
I took the slave girl in my arms. How delicious it is to do such a thing. How pleased I was to own her!
Thimble looked away. I saw Thistle, who had been the rich girl, Audrey Brewster, lips parted, look at me. Then she bit her lip and, too, looked away. I smiled to myself. Thistle, I thought, or Audrey, as I sometimes thought of her to myself, using that name now as a slave name, would probably be the first of the three girls to come to a full slavery. I recalled when she had, once, almost inadvertently, when wearing the yoke Thimble had put on her, when they had been going out to gather moss and grass, knelt to me. She, I had conjectured, would be the first of the three girls to come to a full slavery, or, as the Goreans sometimes put it, she would probably be the first to lick her chains.