He stood up. "Return here, and kneel," he said, "and as you were before." He indicated the spot, gesturing with the whip, near the ring, where I had knelt. He shook out the blade of the whip.
I hurried, crawling, to the spot, and knelt there, as I had before.
He looked down at me.
"Make me pay," I whispered.
"What?" he said.
"I am ready," I whispered.
He smiled.
"I am naked before you," I said. "I am on a chain. You have aroused me. You have made me show myself responsive. You have taken all pride from me. You despise me. You hate me. I gather that I am to be made to pay for my crimes, that men here will make me pay for them, for being a modern woman. I am ready to pay. Make me pay."
"On your back," he said. "Throw your legs apart." Tears in my eyes, I obeyed. "The modern woman," he smiled, "on her back."
"Where I belong!" I said.
"Or on your stomach," he smiled, "or kneeling, bent over, or in any one of a thousand postures of submission and service."
I shuddered, understanding the sorts of things that might be required of me, and even routinely, on this world.
I closed my eyes. I feared I might swoon at his least touch. I had never met anyone who remotely compared with him. I had not even known such men could exist. To such a man I knew that I, even with all my refinement, education and intelligence, could never be more than a dog, a panting bitch, at his feet. He had ever spoken of a "collar." What could he have meant?
I opened my eyes.
"Do you beg?" he asked.
"Would you make me beg?" I cried.
"Yes," he said.
"Very well," I wept. "I beg!"
"The modern woman begs," he smiled.
"I beg," I said. "I am not longer a modern woman."
"Oh, yes," he smiled, "you are still a modern woman, as of now. But, in time, you will no longer be one. In time, that will be taken from you."
"I beg!" I said. "I beg!"
"Surely you have forgotten something," he said.
"What?" I asked, in misery.
"You are a virgin," he said.
I looked at him, wildly, tears in my eyes.
"Kneel, as you were before, slut," he said.
"Beast!" I wept. "Beast!" But I crept to my knees, and knelt before him, as I had been commanded. I was shaking. Tears fell from my eyes. He had had no intention of having me. My virginity, somehow, seemed a factor in this. I wondered what this, really, could have to do with anything. Had it not been for that I think I would, even in the library, by such a man, have been put to lengthy uses. Muchly I suspected would I have been forced to pleasure him, and doubtless Taurog and Hercon, as well.
"Beast!" I wept.
"I am leaving," he said.
I looked up, frightened.
"It was only that I wished to see you before I left, and how you might look, here, a chain on your neck, hateful, charming slut, in a waiting room.""A waiting room?" I asked.
"Yes," he said. "They will be coming for you shortly. You will have a busy morning. Others are already being processed."
"Processed?" I asked.
"Yes," he said. He then turned away from me.
"Wait!" I cried.
He turned about, again to regard me.
I thought desperately. I wanted to keep him with me. "Are all women awakened here," I asked, "by the whip?" My body was still sore from the blows. "No," he said, "of course not. It was merely that I thought it might be informative and salubrious for you to be awakened thusly, that you might then, from the beginning, obtain an inkling as to what, for you, was to be the nature of your new world."
I regarded him, aghast.
"Have no fear," he said. "Such things, if ever, is rarely done. As you may well imagine, it tends to interfere with a woman" s sleep."
"With her beauty sleep?" I said, ironically.
"In a way, that is quite true," he said. "Good rest is important to her, for her loveliness, her alertness and service. It is the same with other domestic animals."
I looked at him, angrily.
"Most of your beatings will occur, at any rate, I assure you, when you are fully awake."
"Beatings?" I asked.
"A hazard of what is to be your condition," he said.
"An occupational hazard?" I inquired.
"The condition is not an occupation," he said. "An occupation is not something you are, but something you do. Too, you might change an occupation. Your condition, on the other hand, in the sense I have in mind, is not what you do, but what you are. Similarly, you will be totally unable to change your condition. You will be absolutely powerless to alter, influence or change it in any way whatsoever. Once it is imposed upon you it will then be something which you, quite simply, and categorically, are. To be sure, susceptibility to the beatings of which I spoke, similarly to an occupational hazard, in its way, is an inevitable concomitant of what will be your condition. The frequency and nature of these beatings, of course, will probably depend much on you. If you are not pleasing, you will doubtless be beaten, and well. If you are pleasing, and perfectly so, you may or may not be beaten."
I looked at him, trying to understand what was being said to me. I did know, of course, I could be beaten. I had already felt the lash. I was not eager to feel it again.
"What is wrong?" he asked.
"I do not understand what you are saying," I said.
"Oh?" he asked.
I put my hands on the chain that attached me by the neck to the ring in the floor. "I do not understand what I am doing here," I said. "What is going to be done with me?"
"You mean, immediately?" he asked.
"Yes," I said.
"You" re going to be branded," he said, "and put in a collar." I regarded him with disbelief.
"But so, too, will the other girls," he said. "You will have your brands and collars."
I could not speak.
"Such things are prescribed by merchant law," he said.
"This," I whispered, frightened, "is then truly a world such as that of which you spoke, a world in which women such as I are bought and sold as slaves?" "Position," he said.
Immediately, I released the chain and knelt as I had before, back straight, back on my heels, my hands on my thighs, my knees spread.
"Yes," he said.
"And that is the fate you have decided for me," I said, "that I be a slave." "Yes," he said.
I was silent.
"It will be amusing, from time to time, to think of you in exacting and perfect bondage, where you belong, so right for you, striving desperately to please masters, for fear of your very life, my delectable, hateful slut." "That is why you did not take my virginity," I said, "because you had this fate in store for me?"
"Yes," he said.
"My virginity could affect my price?" I asked.
"Yes," he said.
"It is if I were an animal," I said.
"Soon," he said, "you will be an animal, in full legality."
"You captured me," I said, poutingly. "My virginity belongs to you. It is yours, truly."
"I do not want it," he said.
I looked at him, startled.
"I give it to whoever buys you, and welcome," he said.
I bit my lip, to keep from crying out in anger.
"Against my will I find you extremely attractive," he said, "even infuriatingly so. Indeed, I must put you from my mind. Soon I will forget you. Soon you will be only another number, another entry in my records. But it is you I find attractive, and not some meaningless part of you. What is the virginity of a hateful modern woman, a despicable slut like yourself, really worth? Nothing. It is worthless. Oh, it might be amusing, as an act of imperious arrogance, to take it from you, to rend it, to be the first to force you apart, to be the first to open you for the uses of men, but it is even more amusing to show you my disdain for the worthless bit of fragile, temporary tissue by which you set such grand and unnatural store, and leave its fate to the lotteries of markets, and to whoever makes the successful bid on you. Let it go to him, whoever he is, who first buys you."
I clenched my fists on my thighs. I sobbed. I wept.
"It is thus," he said, "I show my contempt for you."
I looked up at him.
"Charming," he said.
I sobbed.