Again the lash fell, like lightning, flashed downward. Again I wept. No longer could I cry out. I was helpless. I could do nothing for myself. I was completely dependent on others. I was in the hands of the masters.
Four times more the lash fell.
I then lay at the ring, on my belly, my crossed wrists stretched toward the ring, to which they were fastened. I tried to breathe. Tears had run down my cheeks. The flagging was wet from them. The bonds on my wrists, too, from earlier, were moistened by the tears. In one place the back of my wrist was wet where a tear had slipped between the cords.
The whip was being put away.
I lay there.
I suddenly realized that all likelihood there had been nothing whatsoever personal in the beating. I had not, for example, at least as far as I knew, been displeasing, nor had I offended anyone, unless it be the other kajira. I had not done anything, at least as far as I knew, in any normal sense, to provoke, or merit, the beating. To be sure, reasons are not required for beating a slave. If the master wishes, they may be beaten simply at his whim. They are, after all, slaves. Similarly, as far as I could tell, these men bore me no ill will. I was, from their point of view, only a domestic animal. The beating then, in all likelihood, had not been punitive or even, really, disciplinary. Similarly it did not seem to be arbitrary. Rather it had been, it seems, ritualistic or institutional, and, presumably, by intent, instructive. It had been painful, but surely brief, strictly considered. I had not been informed of its purpose. I had not had to beg for the beating. I had not had to denounce myself before or during the beating. I had not had to count the strokes aloud, and so on.
The cords binding my wrists were freed from the ring, and then the cords were removed from my wrists.
I still lay at the ring.
I did not know if I could move.
The purpose of the beating I am sure, and thereby the intent, the rationale, of its inclusion in my induction here, so to speak, was neither unprecedented nor unusual. It was to help me understand certain things very clearly from the very beginning, that I was subject to the whip, that the men in this place were fully capable of using it on me, and that, if they saw fit, or felt so disposed, would do so. As I have suggested this lesson is neither unprecedented nor unusual. It is often thought to be a valuable lesson for a girl, particularly when she is brought into a new house.
Then I cried out as the jailer pulled me up to all fours by the hair and then, his fist in my hair, hurried me back to the dais.
I was now on all fours, at the foot of the dais. I looked up, though my hair, it muchly before my face now, and my tears, at he in the great chair.
“Do you wish to be beaten again?” he asked.
“No, Master! No, Master!” I said.
“Kneel,” said he.
I obeyed.
“To whom do you belong?” he asked.
“To the state, Master,” I said. To be sure, I did not know what state.
“Are you important?” he asked.
“No, master,” I said.
“Put your head to the floor,” he said. “Clasp your hands behind the back of your neck.”
I wept, and obeyed.
“Tenrik,” said the fellow in the chair.
“Yes, Captain,” said Tenrik.
I cried out.
Dorna laughed.
“Keep your hands clasped behind the back of your neck,” warned Tenrik.
“Yes, Master,” I wept.
My eyes widened.
“Oh!” I said.
“Steady,” said Tenrik. “Clasp your hands.”
“Yes, Master,” I said.
“You feel that?” asked Tenrik.
“Yes, Master!” I said. “Yes, Master!”
I tried to hold myself still.
“Steady,” said Tenrik.
“Yes, Master,” I whimpered.
“Permit her to squirm,” said the man in the chair.
“You may move,” said Tenrik.
I began then, gratefully, to move, almost beside myself. I began to gasp.
“She is a pretty little thing,” said the fellow in the chair.
“Yes,” said one of the men near him.
“Oh!” I said.
“See the Earth slut!” said Dorna.
I began to cry out, softly, helplessly.
“Listen to her!” laughed Dorna.
I tried to stifle my cries.
“See her move,” said a man.
“She cannot help herself,” said a man.
“No,” said another.
“A kajira,” said a man.
“Yes,” said another.
“She is pretty in her collar,” said another.
“They all are,” another reminded him.
“True,” agreed the other.
Dorna made an angry noise.
There was laughter.
But no one paid her much attention.
“Oh!” I said.
“A quite pretty kajira,” said another.
“Yes,” agreed another.
“Oh!” I cried.
“There!” laughed a man. “She is over the brink!”
“She cannot return now,” said another.
“She has gone too far. Tenrik has her now. She is lost!”
“No,” said another. “She is on the verge.”
“Please,” I begged “Please!”
“See?” said the man.
“Yes,” said the other.
“Please, Master!” I begged.
“Captain?” asked Tenrik.
“Very well,” said the man in the chair.
“Ohhh!” I cried.
“Now she is lost,” said one of the men.
“Yes,” said another.
“Ha!” cried Tenrik, a sudden cry, more that of a beast than a man.
I cried out. His hands were on me like iron. I could not have been held more helplessly in the vise of a branding rack. It seemed I was struck again and again.
Then I was left whimpering on the floor before the dais.
“Good,” said Tenrik, appreciatively, now on his feet, his voice husky.
“You find the kajira satisfactory?” asked the man in the chair.
“Even in such a way, in such a time,” said Tenrik. “It may only be conjectured to what lengths she might be brought, given different circumstances, and more time.”
“Do you think she will soon reach the point where she is totally helpless?” asked the man in the chair.
“Yes,” said Tenrik.
I lay before the dais. It was with bitterness, and chagrin, I heard myself so discussed. It was done so publicly, so candidly. Did they not know I was present? Did they not know others were present? I was being discussed as publicly, as candidly, as though I might be an animal. Then I realized again, of course, that I was an animal. I trembled. I already felt that I was, in such modalities, helpless. I was startled to learn I might become even more so. What then could I do? What then would I be? I had learned in the pens that I had an unusual potentiality for vitality, that somehow beneath the encrustations of a subtle, pervasive, insidious conditioning program, one to which I had been mercilessly subjected from childhood on, beneath, and in spite of, all the antibiological values, all the instilled inhibitions, reservations, hesitations and guilts, there lurked a primitive, powerful, natural, healthy responsiveness. This conditioning program, and its effects, now, bit by bit, fragment by shattered fragment, had been broken away from me. In its ruins I had emerged, like a beautiful thing, innocent from the sea. To be sure, I had emerged as something real, not mythical, something which found itself in a very real world, a world in which I learned I was a certain sort of thing, vulnerable, precious and beautiful, and not at all the same as certain other sorts of things which were quite as real as I, and the world, but quite different, as well.
“How worthless she is!” said Dorna.
“Not altogether,” said a man.