She had heard exclamations of pleasure from the men as she had entered, and knelt. Too, there had been some soft cries, it seemed of admiration, and surprise, from some of the women. She dared not look, but wondered if some of her instructrices might not have been there. She wondered if they were pleased with her, with their work, how she had turned out. She hoped so, fervently. She had learned the importance of pleasing them, her ankleted superiors.
“Lift your head,” he said.
She did so, and looked into the eyes of her master.
She wore a tiny slave tunic. It was light, white, and silken. It came high on her thighs. At the left shoulder, where it would be convenient to a right-handed man, there was a disrobing loop. She was, of course, barefoot. The anklet was still on her, as it had been, even since her first world.
He suddenly clapped his hands with pleasure. “Yes!” he said. “She is the same, the same! That is how she was, and now that is how she is!”
She doubted that she had ever been before as what she was now, a barefooted, half-naked slave on an alien world.
Still she did not doubt that she looked now much as she had when she first knew him, he then merely a student, among others, not her master.
“Splendid!” he said.
She wondered if he had, even then, as a student, she feared he had, while she taught, sitting at her desk, behind its modesty screen, or moving before the class, she was sure of it, speculated upon her, stripping her in his mind, considering what she might look like as a female slave, his.
And she now knelt before his chair, on the cold marble, a slave girl, his.
“That is exactly,” he said to the assembled throng, “how she was when I first knew her!” He turned to some men in the room who wore green robes. “You have done well with her,” he said, “as you have with the others.”
They bowed courteously.
He descended from the curule chair, for the first time in their encounters in this room, and walked about her, scrutinizing her, perhaps appraising her. She kept her head up, her back straight, maintaining position. One can be punished terribly for breaking position without permission.
He then, again before her, crouched down before her. “You are twenty-eight again,” he whispered to her. “You are the same, the same, again!”
She was silent.
She remembered back, so long ago.
Her hair had been dark and glossy. She had worn it high on her head, in a severe bun. She recalled studying her figure, critically, approvingly, in her apartment, standing before the mirror in brassiere and panties. It was so long ago.
“You are the same,” he whispered.
Her hair was now loose, as women such as she must commonly wear it.
She had known that she would be brought before him today.
No longer was she kept in a cell but was housed now in a slave kennel, on the sixth level of an entire wall of such kennels, reached by steel steps and grilled walkways. Her kennel was the same as the others, uniformly so. It was something like four feet by four feet, with a depth of some ten feet. To the right of its small gate, rather as in the cells, there was a mirror of polished metal, a large mirror for the size of the kennel. It occupied a part of the wall to the right, as one faced the gate, extending from the floor of the kennel to its ceiling. It had that location, near the gate, presumably that the light might better reach it.
The kennel was furnished, for amenities, with some loose straw and a small, short, torn, thin, threadbare blanket. It was enough for slaves such as she. Such are seldom spoiled.
After having made certain, as she could, that the attendants were not on the grilled walkways giving access to the tiered kennels, she had removed her tunic and knelt before the polished metal surface at the side.
Her figure now, she was sure, was superior even to what it had been so long ago. In a way this pleased her, but, too, it frightened her because she realized that it made her more desirable, considerably so, and on a world where female desirability was, it seemed, approved and prized. She remembered the young women in the corridor, naked and bound, some chained. She was sure that her figure was superior now even to what it had been so long ago. Perhaps, she thought, this might be due to some subtle, benign, ameliorative effect of her treatment. But, more likely perhaps, it had to do with her diet, that diet imposed upon her, and, presumably, the variety of exercises she had recently been taught, and in the zealous, stressful performance of which she was closely supervised. She heard a step on the steel ladder outside, some yards below her kennel. Quickly she slipped into the tunic again. She lay down, her legs drawn up, very closely together, pretending to sleep. Through half-closed eyes, she saw the attendant pass. When he had gone, she rose up again to her knees. She then regarded herself again, now in the tunic. She straightened her body, and shrugged. She was not displeased with the slave she saw. One who knew women, she thought, as these men seem to, would have little difficulty, she in such a tunic, in conjecturing her most intimate and delicate lineaments.
Then she had lain down to sleep.
Tomorrow she knew she was to be presented before her master.
****
“Yes,” he whispered. “You are now the same, the same.”
She did not break position.
He then stood up and, approvingly regarding her, stepped backward a pace, and then turned and ascended the dais, and resumed his place in the curule chair.
It seemed he could scarcely bear to take his eyes from her.
Could he like me, she wondered suddenly, frightened.
He turned to one of the men near him, a tall fellow in white robes trimmed with gold, the dress robes, she had learned, of the Merchants. “What do you think of her?” he asked.
“A pretty little piece of collar-meat,” he said. “A standard property-girl. Typical flesh-loot. There are thousands like her in the markets. She is meaningless.”
“I remember her from long ago,” said the young man.
“Perhaps she is special then in some way to you,” said his interlocutor.
“No,” said the young man, “except insofar as her flanks are of some interest.”
She understood little of their exchange. Some of the expressions seemed clear enough, but she did not, truly, register them in their full import, as they applied to her. It was rather as though she heard them, but would not understand them.
In particular she was puzzled by, and vaguely alarmed by, the reference to markets.
So I am of no concern to him, she thought, except insofar as my flanks might be of some interest! But then, suddenly, she feared it was true. Indeed, of what other interest could she, or such as she, on this world, be to any man? Again she remembered the bound, naked beauties in the corridor. Here, on this world, she feared that men were the masters and would simply, as they wished, have their way with women, doing as they pleased with them, as is the wont of masters; she feared that everything would be on their terms, on the terms of the men, on the terms of the masters, fully, precisely.
Surely, she thought, there must be some way to trick them out of their power! But she feared that these men were not so stupid.
No, in no particle, manner or facet, in no way, would they give up their power.
They were not stupid.
She dared not break position.
“How do your lessons proceed?” he inquired.
“Well, I hope,” she said, adding softly, “— Master.”
He smiled. She saw that he was pleased to hear that word on her lips, addressed to him. Never before had she used this form of address to him, save, of course, in her dreams and thoughts. She felt warm, beautiful, stirred, helpless, so much more aware then of the reality of her enslavement. How weak he is, she suddenly thought, angrily, that he would wish to be so addressed! Is he so pathetic, she thought. Does he really need that, she thought. Is he so weak? But then she realized that these were merely the automatistic, defensive, frightened, programmed responses, the mindless, inculcated reflexes, of her culture’s conditioning program, with its reductive, leveling, negativistic agenda, the outcome of centuries of resentment, denial, hatred, sacrifice, and fear. It was only weak men, she now understood, who would fear to accept, wield, and relish the mastery, the birthright of an ancient biological heritage. How she would hate and despise men who were too weak for the mastery, who would fearfully seek to avoid its privileges, powers and responsibilities! No, he, and others like him, were far from weak! They were strong, much stronger than the timid, boring weaklings so endemic, like bacteria, on her former world. He, as others on this world, was strong enough, mighty enough, to expect, require, and enforce the deference due them, to require and enforce the submission of the principle of femininity, in all its wondrous softness, desirability and beauty, to a more severe, more dangerous principle, that of their masculinity.