"Do not lie to me," he snarled.
I put down my head, miserable. The bells on my ankle moved.
"Your garment is an interesting one," he said. "It well reveals you." I looked up at him, frightened.
"To be sure," he said, "it is a bit more ample than is necessary, not as snug as it might be, not cut as high at the thighs as it might be, not cut as deeply at the neck as it might be, and, surely, as I determined earlier, it is insufficiently diaphanous."
I looked up at him.
"Take it off," he said.
Numbly I pulled the tiny garment over my head and put it beside me on the carpet.
"It may be a long time," he said, "before you are again permitted a garment." I trembled, naked.
The third man went to the table, that on which rested the attachA© case. He removed an object from the case. I gasped in terror. He handed it to the man in front of me. It was a whip. It had a single, stout, coiled lash.
"What do you think your name was?" he asked.
"Doreen," I said. "Doreen Williamson!" That had seemed a strange way to inquire my name, surely. Too, they knew so much about me. They must have known my name. What did he mean then, "What did I think my name was?"
"Well, Doreen," he said, "do you still remember Harper" s Dictionary of Classical Literature and Antiquities?"
"Yes," I said. The way he had said my name somehow alarmed me. It was almost as though that name might not be mine, really. It was almost as though he had simply, perhaps, primarily as a convenience for himself, decided to call me that, if only for the time.
"Fetch it," he said.
I looked at the whip. I leap to my feet, in a jangle of bells, and hurried to the place where the book was. In a moment I had it and had returned, and, holding the book, knelt again before him.
"Kiss it," he said.
I did so.
"Put it down," he said, "to the side."
I did so.
He then held the whip before me. "Kiss the whip," he said.
I did so.
"Kiss my feet," he said. I put my head down, frightened, the palms of my hands on the carpet, and kissed his feet. I then straightened up, and knelt back on my heels.
"Put your hands, palms down, on your thighs," he said.
I obeyed.
"Apparently you do have some intelligence," he said. "Now put your knees apart." "Please, no!" I said.
"Perhaps I was wrong," he mused.
Swiftly I put my knees apart.
"Perhaps you will survive," he mused.
He then nodded to the fellow on his left. To my horror the fellow went again to the attachA© case and this time brought out coils of chain. I could not see well in the half darkness what it was. Then he was behind me. To my horror I felt a metal collar locked about my neck. It was a very sturdy metal collar. It had, apparently, an attachment, or ring, of some sort, I supposed, in the back, and to this attachment, or ring, the long chain was attached. The fellow behind me must have held it mostly coiled in his hand. The collar encircled my neck closely. I touched it, frightened. I put my finger inside the rim of the implacable encirclement. There was only a half inch or so between its metal and my throat. I felt its weight on the attachment, or ring. I was leashed. I wore a chain leash. I was terrified. Perhaps no one can conjecture my feelings, truly, who has not been, too, the helpless prisoner of such a device.
"Slut," he said.
"Yes," I said.
"Are you a virgin?" he asked.
"I see," I said. "I am to be raped."
"Perhaps," he said.
"Your question is personal," I said. Then I felt the metal chain at the back of the collar jerk upward, savagely. The collar cut at the back of my neck, and was tight under my chin. I held my head as far down against the collar as I could, in spite of the additional tightening this effected under my chin, that I might relieve the pressure of its lower rim against my throat. This also forced me to lower my head, submissively. I was half choked. I was unable to speak. I was terrified. I no longer knelt on my heels. I had not been jerked up, off them. Then the collar was suddenly, angrily, turned on my throat, relieving the pressure on my carotid artery, and jerked downward. My head and neck followed it. The long chain was then thrown back between my legs and I felt my ankles crossed and a proximate part of the chain wrapped about them. I was thus held, bent over, my head low, my neck in the collar, kneeling. I strained to look up, lifting my eyes. To my terror I saw the man before me uncoil the whip. "I am a virgin," I whispered. "I am a virgin!" He made a sign and the chain was unwrapped from my ankles and the collar turned again on my neck. I was then jerked backward, half choked, but with the pressure substantially high on my neck, under the chin, doubtless by intent, and then lay before them on the low-piled coarse carpet, so muchly trodden by our library patrons.
"Split your legs," he said.
I did so, obediently.
In spite of my terror, I felt incredibly alive doing this, obeying him. He crouched near me. He put the whip on the rug.
"You are a virgin?" he asked.
"Yes!" I said.
"Are you lying?" he asked.
"No!" I said.
"If you are lying," he said, "you will be whipped."
I looked at him, from my back. I could not begin to understand a man who was so strong. How absurd it seemed! Did he not know that women could do anything with impunity, that no matter what we did, even if it were to bring about the destruction of a man" s manhood and the ruination of his life, we were never punished? And yet this man seemed ready to punish me for so little as a lie, or perhaps for something as insignificant as simply not being fully pleasing to him! What sort of man was this? It was almost as though he were not a man of Earth! How had he managed to escape his weakening? Has he, somehow, not been suitably trained and conditioned? How different he seemed from a man of Earth! Was he one of the rare men of Earth, I wondered, who had seen through the debilitating and demeaning hoaxes of his society, who had cast forth from him, like poisons from his body, the unnatural and pathological conditioning programs to which he had been subjected?
"Do you understand?" he asked.
"Yes," I said.
"I wonder if you really do," he said.
My lip trembled.
"You might perhaps think of lying now to a man," he said, "but I assure you, my dear, the time will come when you would be terrified to even think of lying to a man."
I was silent.
"Hold still," he said.
I tensed.
"This will only take a moment," he said. "I will be extremely gentle." I pulled back a bit.
But he was gently, extremely gentle.
"Is she a virgin?" asked one of the men standing nearby, the third man, he near the table on which rested the attachA© case.
"Yes," said the man beside me.
I blushed, hotly.
The fellow near the attachA© case then turned to it, and seemed to sort through some objects within it. Then he found one and placed it on the table. I do not know if I could have told what it was, in the shadows, had I been standing. Lying as I was, of course, I probably could not, from my position, have seen what it was even had the room been as light as it had been long ago, some three months ago, on that bright afternoon when I had for the first time to my knowledge found myself under the eyes of my current captor. Whatever it was, it did not seem large. It made a metal sound when placed on the table.
"Are you going to rape me now?" I whispered.
"No," he said.
"No?" I asked.
"No," he said.
"Why not?" I asked.
"You are a virgin," he said.
"I don" t understand," I said.
He smiled.
"But if you are not going to rape me," I said, "what is this about?" "Get on your knees," he said, standing up.
I rose again to my knees, with a small sound of bells, the chain leash on my neck.
He seemed a bit angry. The other two men, too, he near the attachA© case, and he who held my leash, his fist now close to the back of my neck, seemed somewhat angry. I gather they had not been particularly pleased to learn that I was a virgin. Had it not been for that I gathered they would have seem to it that I pleased them muchly.
"If I am not to be raped," I said, "I do not understand what is going on. What is this all about?"
"Have no fear," said the man, "eventually, in your new life, you will be well and frequently raped. Indeed, your life, in effect, will be one of rape." "My new life?" I said. "I do not understand what is going on."