“Why did you pretend to be asleep?” he asked.
“forgive me, Master,” I said. He was silent.
“I was afraid,” I said. “Forgive me!”
“How is your belly?” he asked.
“My back, Master?” I asked. I thought I must have misunderstood him.
“Your belly,” he said.
“Master?” I asked. Then I said, “It is all right, Master. Thank you, Master.”
“You have a hot belly,” he said, “particularly for one so new to the collar.”
I kept my head down. I was silent.
“You may be easily controlled by it,” he said. “It puts you much at our mercy.”
“Yes, Master,” I said.
“In the beginning,” he said, “I think I will permit you to be touched by men only infrequently.”
“As Master wishes,” I whispered.
“We shall see how you serve.”
“Yes, Master,” I said.
“Lift your head,” he said.
I did so, but I did not look at him.
“Lift your hair, and turn your head from side to side.”
I put my chained hands to my hair, and lifted it, and turned my head from side to side.
“Pierced-ear girl,” he murmured.
Then he said, “You may lower your hands.”
With a movement of my head, I tossed my hair down, about my shoulders. I adjusted it a little, with my hands, they close together. I kept my head up. I had not received permission to lower it. I did not, of course, look upon him.
“You are pretty,” he said.
“Am I pretty?” he asked.
“No,” I said.
“Am I handsome?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “Forgive me, Master.”
“For speaking the truth?”
“The opinion of a slave is worthless,” I said.
“Why do you say that?” he asked.
“I do not wish to offend Master,” I said.
“Do you think, because you have been put in a collar, you become less intelligent?”
“No,” I said.
“Slavery has many effects on a woman,” he said, “It softens her, it enhances her beauty, it gives her a profound sense of herself, it fulfills her, it increases, considerably, her sexual responsiveness, it increases a thousandfold her capacities to love, but one effect it does not have, it does not reduce her intelligence.”
“Yes, Master,” I said.
“Why should it?” he asked.
“I do not know, Master,” I said.
“It does not.”
“Yes, Master,” I said.
“There is a sense,” he said, “in which the opinion of a slave is worthless, and another sense in which it might not be worthless is the sense in which it might be true, or insightful, or helpful, such things. But in that sense the opinion of an urt or sleen, or any other form of animal, might not be worthless. It might be true, or insightful, or helpful. Such things. The sense in which the opinion of a slave, or other form of animal, is worthless is the sense in which it is just that, the opinion of a slave, or animal. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Master,” I said. My thoughts, like my feelings, did not count. They were only those of a slave.
How these men, these brutes on this world who had never relinquished their manhood, dominated us! How totally, how uncompromisingly, they dominated us! How deliciously they dominated us!
“Intelligent women,” he said, “make excellent slaves.”
“Yes, Master,” I said.
“They understand what has been done to them, what they then are, how they must be, and so on.”
“Yes, Master,” I whispered.
“And they are quick to grasp the impossibility of escape, and the irreversibility, by their own efforts, of what has been done to them.”
“Yes, Master,” I said. But did he not understand how much more there was to it than this? Did he not understand the need for the master, the longing for him, the yearning for him? Did he not understand the need to serve, and love, selflessly?
“You look quite well in chains.”
“Thank you, Master,”
“You belong in them.”
“Yes, Master.”
“You know that, don’t you?” he asked.
“Yes, Master,” I whispered. I was such a woman. Even had it not been for such things as the desire to serve the love wholly, with no thought of self, only with thought for the happiness of the master, I would have belonged in chains. I knew that I had been petty, and vain, and selfish, and doubtless, to some extent, still was. I had little doubt of that if I had been permitted to retain my freedom I would have abused it, almost certainly so in my old world. How fitting then, I recognized, that men, in their arrogance, not wishing to accept such insult and folly on my part, had simply made me a slave, had simply branded me and put me in a collar. I now wore chains. I was now subject to the whip. I would obey, and be pleasing. These things had been decided by men.
“Master!” I begged.
“Yes?” he said.
“For what reason have I been brought here?”
“Here?” he asked.
“To this city, this place,” I said.
“To this particular city, and this particular place?” he said.
“Yes, Master,” I said.
“You will learn in time,” he said.
“Master!” I begged.
“Yes?” said he.
“I do not know my name,” I said.
“It is on the collar,” he said. He indicated that I should move closely approach the bars. I put my right cheek against them, my eyes closed. I felt his pawlike hand slide the kajira collar up, beneath the sirik collar. “There it is,” he said, lifting the lamp a bit. “It is there, your name, on the collar, which you cannot remove from your neck.”
Of course I could not remove the kajira collar! Such collars are not made to be removed by a girl. They are locked. The lock is at the back of the neck. Such collars are light, close-fitting, and attractive. They are pretty. One does not slip them.
I knew that the name was on the collar, and that, thus, in a sense, my name was on me, clearly and obdurately, for anyone to see, anyone who might be literate and care to peruse the collar. In this way a girl may be more easily recognized, and remembered, or identified or traced, or such. She is denied the refuge of a gracious and sheltering anonymity.
And of course I could not remove the sirik collar either. It was locked on me, as well.