by John Norman
I again stepped back.
“I have washed Mistress many times,” she said. “And Mistress is very beautiful. Please.”
I let the coverlet slip to my hips. There was no mistaking the admiration in the eyes of the girl. This pleased me. I let her remove it from me. “Yes,” she said, “Mistress is quite beautiful.”
“Thank you,” I said.
She folded the coverlet and placed it on the great couch.
“Susan,” I said. “That is your name?”
“Yes, Mistress,” smiled the girl.
“What are these rings?” I asked, indicating the heavy ring in the floor, and the two rings in the wall.
“They are slave rings, Mistress,” said the girl.
“What is their purpose?” I asked, frightened.
“Slaves may be tied or chained to them,” said the girl.
“There are slaves, then, in this place?” I asked. This thought, somehow, alarmed me, terribly. Yet, too, at the same time, I found it inordinately moving and exciting. The thought of myself as a slave and what this might mean suddenly flashed through my mind. For an instant I was so thrilled, so shaken with the significance of this, that I could scarcely stand.
“There are true men in this place,” explained the girl.
“Oh,” I said. I did not understand her remark. Did she not know that true men repudiated their natural sovereignty, forsook their manhood and conformed to prescribed stereotypes? Was she not familiar with the political definitions? I wondered then if there might not be another sort of true men, true men, like true lions, who, innocent of negativistic conditionings, simply fulfilled themselves in the way of nature. Such men. I supposed, of course, could not exist. They, presumably, in the way of nature, would be less likely to pretend that women were the same as themselves than to simply relish them, to keep them, to dominate, own and treasure them, perhaps like horses or dogs, or, I thought, with a shudder, women.
“Would Mistress care to partake now of her breakfast?” asked the girl.
I was looking, fascinated, at the heavy ring set in the tiles.
“If Mistress wishes,” said the girl, “she may tie me to it and whip me.”
I looked at her, startled. “No,” I said. “No!”
“I shall tidy the room,” said the girl, “and prepare it for the convenience of Mistress.”
She turned about and went to the side of the room. She began to take articles from the vanity, such as, combs and brushes, and vials, and place them on its surface, before the mirror. She moved with incredible grace.
Glancing in the mirror she saw me behind her, watching her. “Mistress?” she asked.
“Nothing,” I said.
She continued her work. She straightened pillows at the side of the room. She then went to one of the sliding doors at the side of the room and moved one back a few inches. She reached inside and, from the interior of the door, where it had doubtless been hanging, from a loop on its handle, removed an object.
I gasped.
“Mistress?” she asked.
“What is that?” I asked.
“A whip,” she said, puzzled. Seeing my interest she brought it towards me. I stepped back. She held it across her body. Its handle was about eighteen inches long. It was white, and trimmed with yellow beads. Depending from this handle, at one end, were five, pliant yellow straps, or lashes. Each was about two and a half feet long, and one and a half inches wide.
I trembled.
I could scarcely conjecture what that might feel laid to my body.
“Am I to be whipped?” I asked. I was terribly conscious of my nudity, my vulnerability.
“I do not think so, Mistress,” laughed the girl.
I regarded the whip. I wished that she had been more affirmative in her response.
“Whose whip is it?” I asked.
“Yours, Mistress,” said the girl.
“But for what purpose is it to be used?” I asked.
“It is for whipping me,” she said. “It is my hope, however, that I will be so pleasing to Mistress that she will not wish to use it, or not often, on me.”
“Take it away,” I said. It frightened me.
The girl went to a wall and, near the large door, by a loop on its butt end, hung it from a hook. I had not noticed the hook before.
“There,” said the girl, smiling. “It is prominently displayed, where we both, many times a day, may see it.”
I nodded. I regarded the object. There was little mistaking its meaning.
“Susan,” I said.
“Yes, Mistress,” she said.
“Are there truly slaves here, in this place, in this city, or country?”
“Yes, Mistress,” she said, “and generally.”
I did not understand what she meant by “generally.”
I felt the warm air on my body. I smelled the perfume, so delicately feminine, which had been put on me.
“You said you had been ‘named’ Susan,” I said.
“Yes, Mistress,” she said.
“The way you said that,” I said, “it sounded as though you might have been named anything.”
The girl shrugged, and smiled. “Of course, Mistress,” she said.
“You are very pretty, Susan,” I said.
“Thank you, Mistress,” she said.
“These other rings,” I said, indicating the rings about the couch, “are they also slave rings?”
“Yes,” she said, approaching lightly, gracefully, “in their way, but most of them are only anchor rings, to which, say, chains or cords might be attached.” She then crouched by the heavy ring, that with coiled chain beneath it, that fastened at what might, perhaps, count as the bottom of the couch. “But this,” she said, “more appropriately, is the more typical type of ring which one thinks of as a slave ring. Do you see its resemblance to the others, that in the floor, those at the wall?”
“Yes,” I said.
She lifted the ring. I could see that it was heavy. She then lowered it back into place, so that it again, in its retaining ring, fastened in a metal plate, bolted into the couch, hung parallel to the side of the couch. “By means of such a ring,” she said, “a male silk slave might be chained at the foot of your couch.”
The girl rose to her feet. “Surely Mistress is hungry,” she said.
The light from the barred window was behind her. I also saw the shadows of the bars and crosspieces lying across the couch.
I turned and went to the low table where the tray had been placed.
“There are no chairs,” I said.
“There are few chairs in Corcyrus,” said the girl.
I turned to face her, almost in anguish. Something in this place terrified me.
“I have been unable to keep from noticing your garments,” I said.
“Mistress?” asked the girl.
“Forgive me,” I said, “but they leave little doubt as to your loveliness.”
“Thank you, Mistress,” said the girl.
“You are aware of how revealing they are, are you not?” I asked.
“I think so, Mistress,” said the girl.
“By them the lineaments of your beauty are made publicly clear,” I said.
“That is doubtless one of their intentions, Mistress,” said the girl.
I suddenly felt faint.
“Mistress?” asked the girl, alarmed.
“I am all right,” I said.
“Yes, Mistress,” she said, relieved.
I then, slowly, walked about her, frightened. She stood still, very straight, her head up. She was incredibly lovely, and exquisitely figured.
“There is something on your left leg,” I said, “high, on the thigh, just under the hip.” I saw this through the almost diaphanous, white, floral-print tunic she wore.
“Yes, Mistress,” she said. “It is common for girls such as I to be marked.”
“Marked?” I asked.
“Yes, Mistress,” she said. “Would Mistress care to see?
”
Seeing my curiosity, my fascination, she drew up the skirt of the brief tunic, with both hands, and looked down to her left thigh.
“What is it?” I asked. It was a delicate mark, almost floral, about an inch and a half high and a half inch, or so, wide.
“It is my brand,” she said.
I gasped.
“It was put on me in Cos,” she said, “with a white-hot iron, two years ago.”
“Terrible,” I whispered.
“Girls such as I must expect to be marked,” she said. “It is in accord with the recommendations of merchant law.”
“Merchant law?” I asked.
“Yes, Mistress,” said the girl. “May I lower my tunic?”
“Yes,” I said.
She smoothed down the light tunic.
“It is a beautiful mark,” I said.
“I think so, too,” she said. “Thank you, Mistress.”
“Did it hurt?” I asked.
“Yes, Mistress,” she said.
“It doesn’t hurt now though, does it?” I asked.
“No, Mistress,” she said.
I reached out, timidly, toward her throat. I touched the object there.
“What is this?” I asked.
“The silk?” she asked. “That is a collar stocking, or a collar sleeve. They may be made of many different materials. In a cooler climate they are sometimes of velvet. In most cities they are not used.”
Under the silk I touched sturdy steel.
“That, Mistress, of course,” she said, “is my collar.”
“Would you take it off,” I asked, “please? I would like to see it.”
She laughed merrily. “Forgive me, Mistress,” she said. “I cannot take it off.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“It is locked on me,” she laughed. She turned about. “See?” she asked.
Feverishly I thrust apart the two sides of the silken sleeve at the back of the girl’s neck. To be sure, there, below her hair, at the back of her neck, at the closure of the steel apparatus on her neck, there was a small, heavy, sturdy lock. I saw the keyhole. It would take a tiny key.
“You do not have the key?” I asked.
“No, Mistress,” she laughed. “Of course not.”
“Then you have, personally, no way of removing this collar?” I said.
“Yes, Mistress,” she said. “I have no way of removing it.”
I shuddered.
“May I ask you an intimate question, Susan?” I asked.
“Of course, Mistress,” she said.
“Are you a virgin?” I asked.
The girl laughed. “No, Mistress,” she said. “I was opened by men long ago for their pleasures.”
“Opened?” I whispered.
“Yes, Mistress,” she said.
“For their pleasures?” I asked.
“Yes, Mistress,” she said.
You have called me ‘Mistress,’ I said. “Why?”
“That is the customary way in which girls such as I address all free women,” she said.
“What sort of girl are you?” I asked.
“A good girl, I hope, Mistress,” she said. “I will try to serve you well.”
“Are you a slave?” I whispered.
“Yes, Mistress,” she said.
I stepped back. I had tried to fight this understanding. I had told myself that it could not be, that it must not be. And yet, now, how simple, how obvious and plausible, seemed such an explanation of the girl’s garb, and of the mark on her body, and of the collar on her neck.
“I am the slave of Ligurious, first minister of Corcyrus,” she said. She slid the collar sleeve about the collar and, feeling with her fingers, indicated some marks on the collar. I could see engraving there. I could not read the writing. “That information,” she said, “is recorded here.”
“I see,” I said, trembling.
She slid the collar sleeve back about the collar, arranging it in place. “I was purchased almost two years ago, from the pens of Saphronicus, in Cos,” she said.
“The purpose of the collar sleeve is to hide the collar,” I said.
“No, Mistress,” she said. “Surely the collar’s presence within the sleeve is sufficiently evident.”
“Yes,” I said, “I can see now that it is.”
The girl smiled.
“The yellow fits in nicely with the yellow of your belt,” I said, “and the yellow flowers on the tunic.”
“Yes, Mistress,” smiled the girl. The sleeve I saw now could function rather like an accessory, perhaps adding to, or completing, an ensemble. It did, in this case, at least, make its contribution to the girl’s appearance. “The belt is binding fiber, Mistress,” said the girl, turning before me. “It may be used to tie or leash me, or even, coiled, to whip me.”
“I see,” I said. It was a part of her ensemble.
“And the flowers,” said the girl, “are talenders. They are a beautiful flower. They are often associated with love.”
“They are very pretty,” I said.
“Some free women do not approve of slaves being permitted to wear talenders,” she said, “or being permitted to have representations of them, like these, on their frocks. Yet slaves do often wear them, the masters permitting it, and they are not an uncommon motif, the masters seeing to it, on their garments.”
“Why do free women object?” I asked.
“They feel that a slave, who must love whomever she is commanded to love, can know nothing of love.”
“Oh,” I said.
“But I have been both free and slave,” she said, “and, forgive me, Mistress, but I think that it is only a slave, in her vulnerability and helplessness, who can know what love truly is.”
“You must love upon command?” I asked, horrified.
“We must do as we are told,” she said. “We are slaves.”
I shuddered at the thought of the helplessness of the slave.
“We may hope, of course,” she said, “that we come into the power of true masters.”
“Does this ever happen?” I asked.
“Often, Mistress,” she said.
“Often?” I said.
“There is no dearth of true masters here,” she said.
I wondered in what sort of place I might be that there might here be no dearth of true masters. In all my life, hitherto, I did not think I had ever met a man, or knowingly met a man, who was a true master. The nearest I had come, I felt, were the men I had encountered before being brought to this place, those who had treated me as though I might be nothing, and had incarcerated me in the straps and iron box. Sometimes they had made me so weak I had felt like begging them to rape or have me. I had the horrifying thought that perhaps I existed for such men.
“How degrading and debasing to be a slave!” I cried.
“Yes, Mistress,” said the girl, putting down her head. I thought she smiled. She had told me, I suspected, what I had wanted to hear, what I had expected to hear.
“Slavery is illegal!” I cried.
“Not here, Mistress,” she said.
I stepped back.
“Where Mistress comes from,” said the girl, “it is not illegal to own animals, is it?”
“No,” I said. “Of course not.”
“It is the same here,” she said. “And the slave is an animal.”
“You are an animal—legally?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“Horrifying!” I cried.
“Biologically, of course,” she said, “we are all animals. Thus, in a sense, we might all be owned. It thus becomes a question as to which among these animals own and which are owned, which, so to speak, count as persons, or have standing, before the law, and which do not, which are, so to speak, the citizens or persons, and which are the animals.”
“It is wrong to own human beings,” I said.
“Is it wrong to own other animals?” she asked.
“No,” I said.
“T
hen why is it wrong to own human beings?” she asked.
“I do not know,” I said.
“It would seem inconsistent,” she said, “to suggest that it is only certain sorts of animals which may be owned, and not others.”
“Human beings are different,” I said.
The girl shrugged. “So, too, are tarsks and verr,” she said.
I did not know those sorts of animals.
“Human beings can talk and think!” I said.
“Why should that make a difference?” she asked. “If anything, the possession of such properties would make a human being an even more valuable possession than a tarsk or verr.”
“Where I come from it is wrong to own human beings but it is all right for other animals to be owned.”
“If other animals made the laws where you come from,” she said, “perhaps it would be wrong, there to own them and right to own human beings.”
“Perhaps!” I said, angrily.
“Forgive me, Mistress,” said the girl. “I did not mean to displease you.”
“It is wrong to own human beings,” I said.
“Can Mistress prove that?” she asked.
“No!” I said, angrily.
“How does Mistress know it?” she asked.
“It is self-evident,” I said. I knew, of course, that I was so sure of this only because I had been taught, uncritically, to believe it.
“If self-evidence is involved here,” she said, “it is surely self-evident that it is not wrong to own human beings. In most cultures, traditions and civilizations with which I am familiar, the right to own human beings was never questioned. To them the rectitude of the institution of slavery was self-evident.”
“Slavery is wrong because it can involve pain and hardship,” I said.
“Work, too,” she said, “can involve pain and hardship. Is work, thus, wrong?”
“No,” I said.
She shrugged.
“Slavery is wrong,” I said, “because slaves may not like it.”
“Many people may not like many things,” she said, “which does not make those things wrong. Too, it has never been regarded as a necessary condition for the rectitude of slavery that slaves approved of their condition.”
“That is true,” I said.
“See?” she asked.
“How could someone approve of slavery,” I asked, “or regard it as right, if he himself did not wish to be a slave?”