"Is master going to name me?" I asked.
"I will, if it pleases me," he said. "I will not, if it does not please me." "Yes, Master," I said.
"I am a fool," he said.
"I shall maintain a judicious silence," I said. "If I agree I Would seem to proclaim my master a fool. If I disagree, I should, at the very least, contradict him." "I am a fool!" he said, miserably.
"I do not think so," I said, "but, of course, I am only a slave, and I could conceivably be mistaken."
"I should sell you," he said.
"You may do with me as you wish," I said. I had no fear, however, that he would sell me. It was not for such a purpose, I was confident, that he had bought me. "You do not fear me, truly, do you?" he asked.
"Not, ultimately," I said.
"Why?" he asked
"Must I speak?" I asked.
"No," he said, angrily. "You need not speak."
He turned wearily, angrily, away.
"Master?" I asked.
He turned again to face me. "You are a beautiful, complex woman," he said. "I am a simple slave," I said, "a man's toy, a bauble for his pleasure." "Simple or complex, you are a slave," he said. "There is no doubt about that." "Your slave," I reminded him.
"Why did I buy you?" he asked.
"I can think of several reasons," I said.
"Do you mock me?" he asked.
"I tease you," I said. "I do not mock you."
"I care for you," he said, suddenly, bitterly.
"I know," I said.
"And you only a slave!"
"Yes, Master," I said.
"What a fool I am!" he cried.
I was silent.
"You did it to me," he said.
"I?" I asked.
"Yes," he said, "you, with your intelligence, your beauty, your vulnerability, your sensuousness, your glances and movements, your bondage skills, your insidious slave wiles, the perfections of your servitude, made it impossible not to desire you, not to lust for you, inordinately, not to want you, not to demand you, to the point of madness, for my very own!"
I was silent, bound before him. There was some truth' of course, or at least I thought so, to these charges. At least I hoped there was. I had tried, with all the skills I had been taught, and with all the devices, and instincts, of the natural slave, which I was, to attract and lure him. The outcome of such a campaign, of course, if successful, is that the girl becomes the man's slave. She is then, of course, subject to whatever vengeances he might be pleased to take upon her.
I squirmed in the ropes. I belonged to him. I began to sweat. For the first time I felt genuine fear.
"You wrapped me about your finger," he said. "You manipulated me!" "Forgive me, Master," I said.
"Gloat in your power, Slave!" he said.
"Forgive me, Master," I whispered.
"Even last night," he said, "in your writhing on the steps, you made me wild for you. You made me want to tear off your silk and hurl you beneath me, then to have you, uncompromisingly, like the luscious slut and slave you are!" "Yes, Master," I whispered.
"I saw your body jerk in the hands of the soldier!" he said, accusingly. "I cannot help what I am!" I cried, looking up at him, angrily, tears in my eyes.
"You are a slave!" he cried.
"Yes!" I cried. "And had you been there you could, later, have seen my body jerk in the hands of Miles of Argentum. That night he made me, three times, serve him well, and the third time, writhing, I cried myself his, a submitted slave. In the morning I kissed his feet in gratitude!"
"Slave, slave!" snarled Drusus Rencius.
"And do you not make women respond like that," I said, "the girls in the taverns, the girls on their mats, the girls thrown to your feet, for your sport, at the house of a friend?"
"Yes," he said, angrily. "I make them grovel and scream!"
"And why, then," I asked, "should you object if other men make me respond in the same way?"
He regarded me, with fury.
"Am I different?" I asked. "Apparently not," he said. "I am not!" I said. "They are slaves," he said. "So, too, am I!"
"I had hoped you might be more," he said.
"What?" I asked.
"A free woman," he said.
"I have been a free woman," I said. "Do not laud them to me!"
"Do you speak ill of free women?" he asked.
"No," I said, "for I do not wish to be whipped!"
He glared at me.
"Look at me." I said. "I am naked and bound before you! Would you really prefer that I was a free woman?"
"No," he said, and my blood almost froze in my veins.
"You see?" I whispered.
"Yes," he said, angrily.
"I am a thousand times more than a free woman," I said "both to a man and, in my heart and emotions, to myself."
"How is that?" he asked.
"I am a slave," he said, simply.
He looked down, sullenly.
"You take free women into companionship," I said, "but you dream of slaves. You even dream of the free woman as slave. I doubt that any glandularly sufficient rhale does no want us as slaves. If he doesn't, then I think he must be very short on imagination. What do you think is the meaning of your size and strength, your energy and agility, your dominance? Do you think it is all some alarming, inexplicable, statistical eccentricity? Can you not see the order of nature? Is it so difficult to disclose? why do you think men make us slaves, and put us in collars? It is because they want us a slaves. And why do you think we make such superb slaves Because we are born slaves."
"if I take my place in the order of nature," he said, "then obviously, you will be put in yours."
I pulled at the ropes. "I think I am already there, Master," I said. He looked up at me.
"I am on my step," I said. "It is now only necessary that you ascend to yours." "You do not even have a name," he said.
"Perhaps Master will, if it pleases him, give me a name."
"Perhaps I should name you," he said. "Doubtless you might be conveniently ordered about and referred to, if you were named."
"Yes, Master," I said. The name would be a slave name, of course. Such names, like collars, are worn whether the slave wishes them or not. Some masters think of such names being along the lines of verbal leashes, the utterance of the name, like the sudden tug of a leash, immediately calling the slave's attention to the master and his wishes. In any even the slave name, and the knowledge that it is a slave name deeply, and appropriately, informs the consciousness of the slave. Too, of course, it is the only name she has.
He turned away from me.
"You still hesitate to accept me as, what I am, a total slave don't you?" I asked.
"Perhaps," he growled.
"If you wish," I said, "relate to me as to a despised slut bondage. You will discover that I will respond well to you m r that role."
He spun about. "Do you think that you are not despised? he asked.
"Master?" I asked.
"I do despise you," he said, angrily, "for Corcyrus, for your meaninglessness, for your pettiness and cruelty, for what you are, and for what you have done to me I"
I shrank back in the bonds.
"And you are maddeningly beautiful," he said. "You are excruciatingly desirable!"
I was silent.
"I am a free man!" he cried. "I am of the warriors!
"Do you want me to pretend to be a free woman?" I asked. "I can do that. I did it for years. At times I even believed it. I can do it again! Command me, if you wish, to the pretense!"
"You are a slave," he said. "It is all you are. Do not mock me." "Forgive me, Master," I said.
"Day in and day out, night in and night out, I fought my feelings for you," he said. "I immersed myself in duties. I adopted strenuous activities. I sought solace even in the taverns, and in the arms of others. I chided myself for my foolishness. I berated myself for my stupidity! I castigated myself for my madness! But I could not drive you from my mind! Ever more hotly burned the flames of my passion! And you are not even free!"