Indeed, it seemed that here I would be expected to assume certain postures and attitudes, and genuinely feminine ones, perhaps merely because I was a woman. In this world it seemed that sexuality, and perhaps a deeply natural sexuality, was an ingredient, and not a mere accessory. It might lie at the very core of this world. An essential and ineradicable ele-red to be sexuality, with its basic distinctions between human beings, dividing them clearly into different sorts, into males and females. In a world such as this I realized that I might not only be permitted to express my natural, fundamental nature, but that I might be encouraged to do so. This was a world in which my femininity, whatever it was, and wherever it might lead, was not to be denied to me. I glanced at the whip on the wall. On this world, I suspected, I might even be given no choice but to be true to my sex, and fully. For a moment this made me angry.
Surely I had a right to frustrate and deny my sex if I wished. If I was afraid to be a woman, truly and fundamentally, with all that it might entail, surely I should not be forced to become one! Yet I knew that in my heart I felt a sudden, marvelous surge of hope, a sense of possible liberation, that I might here, on this world, be freed, even if I were placed in a steel collar, to be what I truly was, not merely a human being, but the kind of human being I actually was, a human female, a woman.
"Mistress' drink is cold," said the girl. "Let me have it reheated or fetch you a fresh one."
"No," I said. "It is fine." I lifted the small, handleless bowl he had used the word in two hands. I was excited that she had said "fetch." She was the sort of girl who might carry or fetch for a Master or a Mistress. "Mistress," said the girl. "You are a woman. Drink more delicately." I drank from the bowl.
"Yes, Mistress," she said. "That is more feminine." I then realized, even more profoundly than before, bow deeply sexuality must characterize and penetrate this culture. The differences between men and women were to be expressed even in their smallest behaviors. What a significant and real thing it is in this culture to be a man or a woman.
"This is warmed chocolate," I said, pleased. It was very rich and creamy. "Yes, Mistress," said the girl.
"It is very good," I said.
"Thank you, Mistress," she said.
"Is it from Earth?" I asked.
"Not directly," she said. "Many things here, of course, ultimately have an Earth origin. It is not improbable that the beans from which the first cacao trees on this world were grown were brought from Earth."
"Do the trees grow near here?" I asked.
"No, Mistress," she said. "We obtain the beans, from which the chocolate is made, from Cosian merchants, who, in turn, obtain them in the tropics." I put the chocolate down. I began to bite at the yellow bread. It was fresh. "Perhaps Mistress should take smaller bites," she said.
"Very well," I said. I then began to eat as she had suggested. I was a woman. I was not an adolescent boy. Again, even in so small a thing as this, I began to feel my femininity keenly. Too, again, I became very sensitive of the depth and pervasiveness of the sexuality which might characterize this world. Men and women did not even eat in the same way.
"Exceptions can occur under certain circumstances, of course," said the girl. "Mistress might, for example, in the presence of a man she wishes to arouse, take a larger than normal bite from a fresh fruit, and look at the man over the fruit, letting juice, a tiny trickle of it, run at the side of her mouth." "But why would I wish to arouse a man?" I asked.
The girl looked at me, puzzled. "Perhaps the needs of Mistress might be much upon her," she said. "Perhaps she might wish to be taken and overwhelmed in his arms, and forced to surrender to him."
"I do not understand," I said, as though horrified.
"That is because Mistress is free," she said.
I had understood only too well, of course. But I was terrified to even think such thoughts.
"Slaves, I suppose, occasionally have recourse to such devices," I said. I was eager to learn.
"A device such as that with the fresh fruit," she said, "is more appropriate to a free woman. We do have at our disposal, as slaves, however, a number and variety of begging signals, such things as groveling and moaning, and bringing bonds to him in our teeth, wherewith we may endeavor to call our needs to his attention."
"Begging signals?" I said.
"We are at the complete mercy of our masters," she said.
"Are the masters then kind to you?" I asked.
"Sometimes they consent to content us," she said.
"How horrifying to be a slave," I said.
"Yes, Mistress," she said, putting her head down, smiling. I saw that, again, she was answering me in the fashion in which, doubtless, I wished to be answered, doubtless with deference to my dignity, status or freedom. Sorely then I envied her her collar. My feelings now began to alarm me. I decided that it would be safest to change the subject.
"Where are the spaceships?" I asked.
"Spaceships?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
"I do not know," she said. "I have never even seen one."
"Oh," I said.
"Has Mistress?" she asked.
"No," I said. I gathered that Susan, like myself, had been brought to this world unconscious. We knew nothing, or almost nothing, of how we had come here. "The people of this world have very little evidence," she said, "that such things even exist. The only evidence they have, for the most part, is that of certain objects brought from Earth."
"Objects?" I asked.
"Yes," she said. "Usually girls, in chains."
"You refer to them as "objects'?" I asked, horrified.
"Yes, Mistress," she said. "They are slaves."
"I see," I said.
"This world is, as Mistress will discover," said the girl, "on the whole a very primitive and barbaric place. Do not expect to see complex machines and spaceships."
"Oh," I said. understand something of the discipline under which slaves might be held. I wondered what it would be like to be under such discipline. I shuddered. "Does Mistress enjoy her breakfast?" asked the girl.
"Yes," I said.
"Good," she said.
"Susan," I said.
"Yes, Mistress," she said.
"This seems to be a very sexual world," I said.
"Yes, Mistress," she said.
"Are women safe here?" I asked.
"No, Mistress," she said. "Not really."
"You said earlier," I said, "that I was very beautiful." She had seen me naked. "Yes, Mistress," said the girl.
"Do you think that men here, on this world, might find me of interest?" "Do you mean really of interest," she asked- "as a female slave?" "Yes," I said.
"Will Mistress open her robe?" she asked.
I did so.
"Will Mistress please stand and remove her robe, and let it dangle from one hand, and turn, slowly, before me?"
I did so. I waited, inspected.
"Yes, Mistress," said the girl.
I nearly fainted in fear, terrified, but not a little thrilled by this insight. "Mistress would look well being sold from a block," she said.
Hastily, frightened, I pulled the robe on again, and belted it tightly.
"But I think Mistress has little to fear," she said.
I regarded her. In the girl's view, in some respects at least, as I had just learned, I was not unsuitable for slavery.
"Why?" I asked.
"You are well guarded," she said. "Your quarters, even, are in the palace of Corcyrus."
"This is the palace? There are guards about?" I asked.
"Yes, Mistress," she said.
"I am frightened by your master," I said.
"l, too, am frightened by him," she said.