I looked at her, puzzled.
"It is Thassa, the Sea, Mistress," said the girl.
"What sea is it?" I asked.
"That is how we think of her," said the girl, "as the sea, Thassa." "Oh" I said, bitterly.
"Has Mistress noted certain feelings or sensations in her body, perhaps of a sort with which she is unfamiliar?" asked the girl. "Has Mistress noted any unusual qualities in the air she is breathing?"
"Perhaps," I said. These things I had construed as the lingering effects of the substance which had been injected into me, rendering me unconscious.
"Would Mistress like for me to have her bath prepared?" she asked.
"No," I said. "I am clean."
"Yes, Mistress," she said. I realized, uneasily, that I must have been cleaned. "I have been perfumed, have I not?" I asked. I did no know if the room had been perfumed, or if it were I.
"Yes, Mistress," said the girl.
I pulled the coverlet up, even more closely, about my neck.
I felt its soft silk on my naked, perfumed body. The perfume was exquisitely feminine.
"Am I still a virgin?" I asked.
"I suppose so," said the girl. "I do not know."
I looked uneasily at the heavy door, behind her. I did not know who might enter that door, to claim me.
"In whose bed am I" I asked.
"In your own, Mistress," said the girl.
"Mine?" I asked.
"Yes, Mistress," she said.
"Whose room is this?" I demanded.
"Yours, Mistress," said the girl.
"There are bars at the window," I said.
"They are for your protection, Mistress," said the girl. "Such bars are not unusual in the rooms of women in Corcyrus.
I looked at the girl in the light, floral-print tunic, kneeling a few feet from the bed. It was almost diaphanous. It was not difficult to detect the lineaments of her beauty beneath it. seemed a garment which was, in its way, demure and yet, the same time, extremely provocative. To see a woman such a garment, I suspected, might drive a man half mad with passion. I wondered what was concealed in the silken sheath about her neck.
"Why have I been brought here?" I asked. "What am I doing here?" "I do not know, Mistress," said the girl. "I am not one such as would be informed."
"Oh," I said. I did not fully understand her response.
"Is Mistress hungry?" she inquired.
"Yes," I said. I was ravenous.
Smiling the girl rose lightly to her feet and left the room.
I left the bed and stood then on the tiles, near the bed, the coverlet still held about me, almost like a great cloak. The tiles felt cool to the bottoms of my feet. The weather seemed warm and sultry. I wondered if I might be in Africa or Asia.
I looked at the rings on the couch, at the ring in the floor, and the two rings in the wall, one about a yard from the floor and one about six feet from the floor.
I looked at the door. There was a handle on my side of the door, but no way to lock or bar it, at least from my side.
I heard a noise, and stepped back.
The door opened and the girl, carrying a tray, smiling, entered.
"Mistress is up," she said. She then set the tray down on the small table. She arranged the articles on the tray, and then brought a cushion from the side of the room and placed it by the table. There was, on the tray, a plate of fruit, some yellow, wedge-shaped bread, and a bowl of hot, rich-looking, dark-brown, almost-black fluid.
"Let me relieve Mistress of the coverlet," she said, approaching me. I shrank back.
"It is too warm for it," she smiled, reaching for it.
I again stepped back.
"I have washed Mistress many times," she said. "And Mistress is very beautiful. Please."
I let the coverlet slip to my hips. There was no mistaking the admiration in the eyes of the girl. This pleased me. I let her remove it from me. "Yes," she said, "Mistress is quite beautiful."
"Thank you," I said.
She folded the coverlet and placed it on the great couch.
"Susan," I said. "That is your name?"
"Yes, Mistress," smiled the girl.
"What are these rings?" I asked, indicating the heavy ring in the floor, and the two rings in the wall.
"They are slave rings, Mistress," said the girl.
"What is their purpose?" I asked, frightened.
"Slaves may be tied or chained to them," said the girl.
"There are slaves, then, in this place?" I asked. This thought, somehow, alarmed me, terribly. Yet, too, at the same time, I found it inordinately moving and exciting. The thought of myself as a slave and what this might mean suddenly Hashed through my mind. For an instant I was so thrilled, so shaken with the significance of this, that I could scarcely stand.
"There are true men in this place," explained the girl.
"Oh," I said. I did not understand her remark. Did she not know that true men repudiated their natural sovereignty, forsook their manhood and conformed to prescribed stereotypes? Was she not familiar with the political definitions? I wondered then if there might not be another sort of true men, true men, like true lions, who, innocent of negativistic conditionings, simply fulfilled themselves in the way of nature. Such men. I supposed, of course, could not exist. They, presumably, in the way of nature, would be less likely to pretend that women were the same as themselves than to simply relish them, to keep them, to dominate, own and treasure them, perhaps like horses or dogs, or, I thought, with a shudder, women.
"Would Mistress care to partake now of her breakfast?" asked the girl. I was looking, fascinated, at the heavy ring set in the tiles.
"If Mistress wishes," said the girl, "she may tie me to it and whip me." I looked at her, startled. "No," I said. "No!"
"I shall tidy the room," said the girl, "and prepare it for the convenience of Mistress."
She turned about and went to the side of the room. She began to take articles from the vanity, such as, combs and brushes, and vials, and place them on its surface, before the mirror. She moved with incredible grace.
Glancing in the mirror she saw me behind her, watching her. "Mistress?" she asked.
"Nothing," I said.
She continued her work. She straightened pillows at the side of the room. She then went to one of the sliding doors at the side of the room and moved one back a few inches. She reached inside and, from the interior of the door, where it had doubtless been hanging, from a loop on its handle, removed an object. I gasped.
"Mistress?" she asked.
"What is that?" I asked.
"A whip," she said, puzzled. Seeing my interest she brought it towards me. I stepped back. She held it across her body. Its handle was about eighteen inches long. It was white, and trimmed with yellow beads. Depending from this handle, at one end, were five, pliant yellow straps, or lashes. Each was about two and a half feet long, and one and a half inches, wide.
I trembled.
I could scarcely conjecture what that might feel laid to my body.
"Am I to be whipped?" I asked. I was terribly conscious of my nudity, my vulnerability.
"I do not think so, Mistress," laughed the girl.
I regarded the whip. I wished that she had been more affirmative in her response.
"Whos whip is it?" I asked.
"Yours, Mistress," said the girl.
"But for what purpose is it to be used?" I asked.
"It is for whipping me," she said. "It is my hope, however, that I will be so pleasing to Mistress that she will not wish to use it, or not often, on me." "Take it away," I said. It frightened me.
The girl went to a wall and, near the large door, by a loop on its butt end, hung it from a hook. I had not noticed the hook before.
"There," said the girl, smiling. "It is prominently displayed, where we both, many times a day, may see it."
I nodded. I regarded the object. There was little mistaking its meaning. "Susan," I said.
"Yes, Mistress," she said.