She then lay beside me.
"Do you still love being a slave girl?" I asked.
"Yes, Master," she said.
"But I did not so much as touch you," I said.
"Oh, sex is terribly important," she said. "and you may use it as you do, you beasts, to conquer and discipline us, and make us your sex slaves, but, too, there are other things in slavery which are perhaps harder for you to understand, for you are not the woman."
"What can there be," I asked, "other than chains and the whip, the kiss and the collar?"
"You men are so simple, so naive," she laughed. "You do not even understand the fullness of the power you hold over us. Slavery is not a mere condition; it is a kind of life. The woman is not simply a slave when you seize her and throw her to your feet. She is a slave, too, before this, and after this, subject to your will, and knowing it. There is a wholeness, a fullness, a beauty in a woman's being a slave, of which I fear you may be unaware."
"Perhaps," I said.
"Do you think women would make you such marvelous slaves if there was not something in them which wanted to be enslaved?"
"Perhaps not," I said.
"A slave girl is not a slave only, you see, when she is commanded or taken in the arms of the master. She is a slave wholly, fully, all the time. It is what she is. I think it is this wholeness, this fullness, this beauty, this totality of bondage which you men do not understand. It is hard to speak of it. When a girl is a slave all of her is a slave. It is what she is. Oh, I could speak to you of a woman's need for emotional fulfillment, security, excitement, romance, discipline; her need to relate, to be happy, to a strong male figure, one before whom she knows herself, truly, in the intimacy of herself to be a female, and his; the bankruptcy of egoism, ambition and greed for many women; their need to love, their desire to please and be of service; their intrinsic yearning to submit to an uncompromising, dominant organism; their deep-seated desire to be found so beautiful and attractive that men will want them, and want them so much that they will own them and make them give them everything, but are not all these things only futile words peripheral to the speechless emotional reality felt by the girl when she kneels before the master, and he then touches her as his own?"
I did not speak.
"There is something about being owned, and belonging to another, which is very meaningful to a woman," she said. "It is also, in a way that is hard to make clear to a man, profoundly satisfying."
"It has to do with nature," I suggested.
"I suppose, in some way," she said.
It seemed likely to me that there would be a genetic base for feelings so deep, and widely spread.
"Are you going to free me?" she asked.
"No," I said.
"That pleases me," she said.
She lay beside me. I did not touch her.
"It is hard to make clear toaman," she said.
"What?" I asked.
"The ecstasy of being a slave girl," she said. "You see, Master," she said, "the joy of being a slave girl is a very deep and continuous thing. Its emotional fulfillments extend far beyond the masterly depredations and disciplines you inflict, as you please, upon me."
"Surely they are not unimportant," I said.
"No," she said, "they are important. Indeed, it was your touch which first made me a slave."
I sensed her turn toward me in the darkness. "But, you see," she said, "I must serve you whether I am touched or not. And that, too, in a way you may have difficulty understanding, I find very meaningful, very thrilling."
"You respond then, not only to my touch but also to the very condition of slavery itself?" I asked.
"Yes," she said, "but I would prefer to think of it as responding not so much to the condition of being a slave as to the clear and incontrovertible fact that I am a slave. I think that is it, that that is my reality, that I am a slave."
"That you find thrilling in itself?" I asked.
"Yes," she said, "to be will-lessly at the mercy of another, his helpless slave."
"I see," I said.
"Too, sometimes," she said, "being a slave I feel very free and happy."
"Perhaps that has something to do with the repudiation and abandonment of egoism, the enemy of love," I speculated.
"Perhaps," she said, "I do not know. I suspect it involves many things and is very deep."
"Only fools have simple explanations for complex phenomena," I said. "Nothing human is simple."
"I lie vulnerably beside you," she said, "yours to do with as you please. I am a slave."
I took her in my arms, and began her slow, patient rape.
"Release me," she said.
"No," I said.
She squirmed, futilely, impaled.
"Let me go," she said.
"No," I said.
"I demand to be released," she said.
I laughed, softly, holding her. She tried to free herself, and could not.
She stopped struggling. "Ai, Ai!" she said, clutching me.
I holding her right arm with my left hand, thrust my right hand over her mouth, tightly, that she not disturb the others in the hut. My right hand felt wet and hot, from the heat and moisture of her breath. I felt her teeth under her lips. She tried to twist her head, and then yielded.
It was pleasant having her in that way.
"Why did you resist?" I asked.
"To see if my resistance would be acceptable to you," she said.
"It was not," I said.
"Of course not," she said. "I am a slave." There was a pause. "Are you going to whip me," she asked, "for being troublesome?"
"I did not find you troublesome," I said.
"Oh," she said. We lay together, quietly, for a time. "You took me against my will," she said.
"Yes," I said.
"I wondered if you would do that," she said.
"I take you when and as I please," I said.
"Of course." she said. "I am a slave" In time she put her lips to me, tenderly. "Oh," she said. She drew back. "You are strong, Master," she laughed.
"You are a sweet-lipped and beautiful slave," I said. It was true. With a girl like Arlene what man would not be driven half mad with lust? How marvelous she was. How easy it was to desire her.
"I did not know a man could be so strong," she said, wonderingly.
"Do you think you. have nothing to do with it, you pretty idiot?" I asked.
"Oh?" she asked.
"You have a great deal to do with it," I said.
"You cannot even see me in the dark," she said.
"I know what you look like." I said, "and I can feel you, your closeness, your body, your touch. It has an interesting modality in the darkness, in the furs." I reached to her, and, by the strap on her throat, pulled her down beside me. "Also," I said, "you are a naked slave. No woman can be more interesting than a naked slave."
"Oh," she said. I held her by the strap.
"That you arc a slave makes you additionally stimulating to the male," I said, "aside from your mere beauty and intelligence."
"Yes," Master," she said.
"So do not be surprised, in your servitude," I said, "that you find men strong. Simply to look upon you, a beautiful slave, will commonly be enough to stimulate their lust. You are no longer a free woman, filled with her rigidities and negativities, for whom it is permissible to be irritating and boring. No. You are a lovely slave. Looking upon you men will want you. They will want to buy you. They will want to own you."
"Yes, Master," she said.
"Men even kill to possess women such as you," I told her. "You are that desirable."
"Yes, Master," she said.
"So do not prate in awe of male power," I said. "It is you, and your beauty, and your slavery, and your intelligence, which provides so powerful an incentive to their strengths and aggressions. Whether this pleases you or not, you are such that men, looking upon you, will want you, and will want you so much that they will be willing to pay for you, or even fight for you. Do you begin to understand the meaning now of being a beautiful slave?"