“Too,” she said, “you may upon occasion be used to torment and taunt them, that they may, in their misery and frustration, the better understand their helplessness.”
“I see,” I whispered.
“Their time in the pits,” she said, “is not intended to be pleasant.”
“I see,” I said.
“It is a form of torture,” she said.
“I understand,” I said.
“In all things,” she said, “remember to be pleasing to the pit master.”
“Yes, Mistress,” I said.
“For you may be given not only to the guards,” she said, “but to the prisoners.”
“Yes, Mistress,” I said.
“They might tear you to pieces,” she said.
“Yes, Mistress,” I said.
“I trust that you will rest well,” she said.
“Thank you, Mistress,” I said.
“How is your back?” she asked.
“It hurts,” I said.
“Mistress!” I said.
“Yes?” she said.
“The free woman said that my accent was terrible. Is it terrible?”
“How vain you are!” she smiled.
“Please,” I said.
“Speak,” she said.
“I am a barbarian,” I said. “I come from a world I call “Earth.” I and several others were brought here to be slaves. I do not know the city to which I was first brought, nor where I am now. I do not even know my name. I do know that I am a slave.”
“You speak very well,” she said.
“My accent is not terrible?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “But it is, at least at this point, a slave accent.”
“Yes, Mistress,” I said.
“But accents,” she said, “do not matter, you must understand, whether or not you have one, or of whatever sort it might be. What matters is what you are, that you are a slave. Most slaves, you see, such as myself, do not have accents, or at least in any ordinary sense. But we are total slaves, I assure you, just as you are, and will remain, others things being the same, even should you be able, masters permitting it, to lose your accent.”
“I understand,” I said.
“Mistress,” I said.
“Yes?” she said.
“Is the pit master truly human?” I asked.
“Of course,” she said. “He cannot help that he was born as he was.”
I looked down.
“He is afraid to go to the surface,” she said, “in spite of his intelligence, and his great strength, for there even children mock and ridicule him. It is better that he is here.”
“He makes me sick to look upon him,” I whispered.
“Then do not look upon him,” she said.
“He must make you sick as well,” I said.
“No,” she said.
“Why do they call him “the Tarsk”?” I asked.
“I would suppose that would be obvious,” she said.
“What is a tarsk?” I asked.
“You have never seen one?” she asked.
“No,” I said.
“It is a form of beast,” she said. “To be sure, I do not think he really looks like a tarsk. I think they call him that not so much because he looks like a tarsk, really, as because, in some ways, in what they take to be his ugliness, he reminds them of a tarsk.”
“He is hideous,” I said.
“I am not sure of that,” she said.
“No, he is hideous, hideous!” I said.
“One grows used to him.”
“Never!” I said.
“What manner of man is he?” I asked.
“He is actually a gentle creature,” she said, “save when aroused. To be sure, he is strict.”
“You must loathe him,” I said.
“No,” she said.
“You must fear him,” I said.
“Of course,” she said.
“You seem to have some sort of special relationship to him,” I said.
It was she who had carried the torch and assisted him, she who had fed me, and such.
“He sleeps me at his feet,” she said.
I shuddered.
“You will not compete with me for his favor?” she smiled.
“No, no, no!” I said, shuddering.
“You yielded well,” she smiled.
“I could not help myself,” I said. “I am a slave. Any man can make me yield!”
“Any man?” she asked.
“Yes!”
“Even one you resent or loathe?”
“Yes!”
“Even one you dislike, or despise, or hate?”
“Yes!” I wept.
“And yield fully, even against your will, unreservedly, unstintingly, unable to help yourself?”
“Yes!” I sobbed. “I cannot help myself! I am helpless in their arms! You must understand such things!”
“Yes,” she said. “I understand them quite well.”
A tear ran against the bar, against which was pressed my right cheek.
‘You are beautifully vital,” she said.
“Are you not, too, a slave?” I asked, my eyes burning with tears.
“Men must find you a very beautiful, and very valuable, property,” she said. “You would undoubtedly bring a high price in the market.”
“Are you not, too, a slave!” I wept.
“Yes,” she said. “I, too, am a slave.”
I put my head down a little. I could feel the two bars against my forehead. My hands, chained, continued to grasp the bars.
“Do you think you are the only one whose belly has screamed in the darkness for a man’s touch?” she asked. “The only one that has desired to kneel? The only one that has desired to serve, and love, and with her whole being, holding back nothing? The only one that has cried out, and squirmed gratefully under the haughty, audacious touch of one who owns you?”
I looked up, regarding her, tears in my eyes.
“And we would not be other than as we are,” she said.
“No,” I said. “We would not be other than as we are.”
“We are slaves,” she whispered.
“Yes,” I whispered.
“It is time now for you to rest,” she said.
“I am afraid!” I whispered.
“There is much to fear when one is a slave,” she said.
“Yes, Mistress,” I said.
Then she had turned away.
I knelt in sirik, in the cage, grasping the bars, looking after her.
The “Tarsk,” the pit master, or, to use his more exact title, the depth warden, was still at the table. His small legs were under him on the bench. His large upper body, swollen and disproportionate, boulderlike, leaned forward, over the table. He had put aside the papers, which may have been mine, and was now, by the light of a small lamp, perusing a scroll. It was doubtless late.
I sat down in the cage, my knees drawn up. The sirik fitted me very well. My measurements might have been sent down from above, earlier. I looked about. I was well exposed to view, on four sides, given the construction of the cage. To be sure, I might have been even better revealed, had it not been for the bars, which were thick and closely set. There are a great many varieties of slave cages, with respect to the number of occupants for which they are designed, and, within such parameters, with respect to shape, size and materials. I was in a fairly standard, common-model, single-girl cage, one involving a design compromise between display and security, security not from the point of view of containing the occupant, which a lighter cage would be fully effective in doing, but security against being broken into by thieves. At one end of the spectrum one has cages which are designed primarily for display, cages within which the woman is held as helplessly as a kitten but which are not thought to afford adequate resistance to men equipped with suitable tools. Cages of this sort are usually used temporarily, as during daylight hours in enclosed courts, and such, when slavers’ men are about. At the other end of the spectrum are heavy cages in which the bars may be two inches in diameter and spaced but an inch or so apart, in which the occupant can be barely discerned. Cages of the sort in which I was currently kept are sometimes spoken of as “tantalizers,” for a great deal of women is displayed, surely enough to arouse interest, but, because of the bars, perhaps not enough to make a satisfactory determination. The slaver then, of course, agrees to draw the occupant forth for more careful examination. In this way, a girl’s charms, she now drawn forth from the cage and displayed, are assured their due consideration. It is easy to insufficiently attend to, or even neglect, or dismiss, these charms when she is merely one of a number of others, chained, say, in a sales barn or on a cement shelf in an open market. But let the buyer now, his interest aroused, his attention focused, examine the occupant. What now of her visage, and hair, of the delicacy of her throat, the slightness of her wrists, the trimness of her ankles, the smallness of her hands and feet, and her slave curves? And thus might an excellent buy, perhaps one even fit to be a love slave, be brought to his attention, a buy which, otherwise, might have passed tragically unnoticed. To be sure, he might only be buying for investment purposes, or perhaps he merely wishes to pick up a gift for a friend. There are also, of course, a large number of other incarceratory devices, such as slave chests, or boxes, and slave sacks. These, of course, are not designed to display the slave, but are intended for other purposes, in particular, punishment or transportation. The sort of cage in which I was held is also suitable, incidentally, for transportation. There was no need, of course, that I be chained in the cage. That was only, I supposed, to help me keep in mind that I was a slave. I had no blanket. The others had blankets. I hoped I might be given one later. I was a new girl. There were three women in the kennels, the brunette and two blondes, and, at the wall, there were five women, each chained there by the neck and left ankle. Two of the kenneled women were chained, the brunette and one of the blondes. I hoped that I might, in time, be adjudged not only worthy of a blanket, but even of a kennel, for there were five such, and two were empty. I did not expect to be given such luxuries now. I was a new girl. I was not certain that I wanted to be chained at the wall, for I feared the other women there. I was a barbarian, and my ears were pierced.