by John Norman
“I see,” said Brenner.
“And I,” she said, “not only in the narrower senses of intelligence, but also, more importantly, in this larger sense of intelligence, accept you as my master.”
Brenner did not respond to this. Although he certainly did not regard her as stupid, but, rather, indeed, as of extremely high intelligence, he did not, in virtue of their interactions, and his sensing of them, feel inferior to her. He was intellectually, if not ideologically, comfortable with her. He regarded himself, indeed, in some subtle sense, as her master. Certainly it was clear that she belonged at the feet of someone, and perhaps someone such as himself.
“But it is not my intention to disturb you,” she said. “Rather let me reiterate my gratitude that you will remain the night, and for the liqueur, which is much more appreciated than I suspect you can understand.” She smiled at him. “I can still taste it,” she said.
Brenner wondered if he kissed her, if he, too, might taste the liqueur, its syrupy, ruby sweetness lingering on the softness of her lips.
“Is there anything that I might now do for you,” she asked, “any way in which I might serve you?”
“You are prepared to serve me?” asked Brenner.
“Of course,” she said. “I am a female.”
Brenner regarded her, standing there, by the door.
“May I serve you?” she asked.
“No!” said Brenner. “No!”
“Then, if I may,” she said, “and you have no further need of me, I think I shall retire for the night.”
“It is early,” said Brenner.
“But if you have no further need of me?”
“Of course,” said Brenner. “You may retire.”
“Thank you,” she said, approaching him.
“What are you doing?” he cried. He stepped back, quickly, frightened.
She had come to kneel before him, and had put her head down , to his feet. She looked up at him. “It is customary,” she said, “that we exhibit deference to the clients of our contract holder, before retiring.”
“What was it your intention to do?” he asked.
“To press my lips to your feet, to kiss them, thus, in one of many ways, exhibiting deference,” she said.
“Do not do so!” he said.
“Yes, sir,” she said. She stood up, near the bed.
“What are you doing!” he cried.
She looked at him, puzzled. “I am preparing to retire,” she said. “I am removing my silk, that it not be soiled.”
Brenner sat down in the chair. He looked away. He heard a rustle of silk.
“May I have the use of a sheet?” she asked.
“Certainly,” he said.
He heard a sheet drawn from the bed. In a moment then, he understood that she was lying beside his chair, to the right, between the chair and the bed. She would be to the left of the bed, as one would face its foot.
He heard the movement of the sheet, a tiny noise, and the sound of her body, lying to his right, almost within reach.
“Are you naked?” he asked, not looking.
“I have the sheet,” she said. “It covers me.”
“Aside from that?” he asked.
“Of course,” she said.
He still did not dare to look at her. He found the thought of her lying there, naked, within the sheet, on the dark, hard, polished boards of the floor, disturbing.
“You do not care to look at me?” she said.
Brenner did not answer.
“Have I been displeasing?” she asked.
Brenner did not answer.
“There are instruments in the room which may be used in my subjugation,” she said.
Brenner was silent.
“What is it you fear?” she asked.
“Nothing!” said Brenner.
“Do you fear you will be tempted to call me to your side in the night?” she asked.
“No,” said Brenner. “No!”
“I would have to obey you, you know,” she said.
“Do not even speak so,” he said.
“Do you fear rather that it would be I, that it would be I who might approach you in the night,” she asked, “piteous, begging, perhaps even daring to touch you?”
“You?” said Brenner.
“Yes,” she said, “I.”
“That would be absurd,” he said.
“It is not absurd,” she whispered.
Brenner clenched his fists.
“You may prevent that,” she said, “by gagging and chaining me, and putting me where I cannot reach you. I will then be unable not only to reach you but even to beg for the assuagement of my needs.”
“Sexual needs?” inquired Brenner.
“Of course,” she said. “And in the profound and holistic sense in which a woman has such needs.”
“Such needs do not exist,” said Brenner.
“Is that why the home world must go to such lengths to deny them, to thwart, and suppress them?” she asked.
“You may have the bed, of course,” said Brenner.
“It is I who am under contract,” she said, “not you.”
“I shall sleep on the floor,” said Brenner.
“The bed is for the client,” she said, “and for me, only upon his sufferance.”
“I can order you to its surface,” he said.
She was silent. Brenner gathered that he could, indeed, do so.
“Please get into the bed,” said Brenner.
“Yes, sir,” she said. He heard the sound of the bed, receiving her slight weight.
“Please look upon me,” she said.
Brenner turned about. She was small on the large bed, kneeling on its surface, the sheet clutched about her.
“The bed is large,” she said. “There is much room. We can both lie upon it. We need not touch. You can bind and gag me, if you wish.”
“It is early,” said Brenner, uneasily.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“I will sit here, and think,” said Brenner.
“May I have permission to leave the bed?” she asked.
“Of course,” said Brenner.
“May I beg to sleep upon the floor?” she asked.
“I suppose, if you wish it,” he said.
She moved gracefully, with a silken movement from the bed, and went to the wardrobe. Brenner refused to watch her at the wardrobe. He heard a tiny noise, as of a glass stopper removed from a bottle. A sudden fragrance, subtle but insinuative, indefinable, exciting, permeated the room. He heard the stopper replaced in the bottle, and the bottle returned to a shelf. She, and this scent, approached, and then she, half sitting, half lying, was again at the side of the bed, to Brenner’s right.
“Do you like it?” she asked.
“What have you done?” he asked.
“I have freshened my perfume,” she said. “We often do that, when we have a guest.”
“It is a different perfume,” he said.
“Yes,” she said.
“It seems you desire to appeal to many senses,” he said.
“Of course,” she laughed. “Do you like it?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Even though I am a free woman?” she asked.
“I do not understand,” he said.
“It is a perfume of slaves,” she said. Then she snuggled down on the boards.
Brenner was alarmed. The perfume was heady, and the understanding that it was a slave perfume made him almost scream with need.
“You torture me,” he said.
“I am doing nothing,” she said. “I am just lying here. You may beat me, if you wish.”
“A cuffing might do you good,” he said, angrily.
“Quite possibly,” she said.
“I think you would make an excellent slave,” he said.
“If I were a slave, I would hope so,” she said, “as I would wish to live.”
Brenner growled, angrily.
“I may one
day be a slave,” she said. “It is my understanding that that is a common fate for women under contract.”
“Perhaps,” said Brenner.
“If I were a slave,” she asked, “would you like to own me?”
“No!” said Brenner, angrily.
“You are apparently not ready to retire,” she said.
“No!” said Brenner. How absurd seemed the thought of trying to rest, let alone getting any sleep, lying there in the darkness, with that perfume in the air, understanding its meaning, knowing the proximity, and the nature and femininity, of the woman who wore it.
“I gather,” she said, “that with one such as you I may do much what I please.”
“For the moment,” said Brenner, carefully.
“I am not accustomed to being treated with such lenience,” she said.
“If you are going to be up,” he said, “get dressed!”
Quickly, clutching the sheet about her, she rose up and went to the wardrobe again. He did not, of course, watch her, as he was a gentleman, so to speak.
“I am dressed,” she announced.
Brenner regarded her, stunned.
“Cover yourself!” he said.
Laughing, she put the sheet again about her. Beneath it now she wore not the yellow silk, but another, a clinging, diaphanous scarlet silk. Her shoulders and belly were bared, and her left thigh. Her breasts were beautiful, sweet and full, in a soft halter of crossed silken bands. The drape of silk, open on the left, was low on her belly. It swirled about her ankles.
She sat on the floor, her knees drawn up, her back against the side of the bed, near him, the sheet wrapped demurely about her. She even tucked it more closely, more modestly, about her. This irritated him. She looked up, smiling. He could see her bared feet, and ankles, beneath the sheet. On her left ankle was the chain, and disk. He would have liked to have looked more closely at that. He did not do so, of course. He turned his eyes away.
“It is warm in here,” she said.
That was true. It probably had to do with comfort zones somewhat other than those which those of Brenner’s species might regard as optimum.
“With one such as you, it is true, is it not,” she asked, “that I may do much what I please?”
“Of course,” said Brenner.
“May I not then remove the sheet?” she asked.
“If you wish,” said Brenner, angrily.
“Surely it does not matter,” she said, “as you do not look upon me.”
Brenner kept his eyes away, angrily.
“And as you are of the home world,” she said, “it cannot matter anyway. One such as you, a true person, of the home world, merely accidentally male, anatomically, would scarcely notice such a thing. It would be meaningless to him.
“Of course, of course,” said Brenner, sweating.
“With one such as you I am safe.”
“Of course,” Brenner granted her.
He heard the rustle of the sheet. He also sensed that she had changed her position. “There,” she said. “That is better.”
He looked upon her, and gasped. She had moved a little, and now, where she had earlier knelt, half sat, half knelt, her weight much on her right thigh and the palms of her hands. The sheet had been put on the floor about her, in a circular pattern. In this fashion it contrasted with the dark boards of the floor, and the scarlet of the silk. As she was positioned, her left thigh was bared, a consequence of the draping of the silk doubtless, which silk, it seemed, doubtless inadvertently, like the sheet, was arranged flowingly, and beautifully, one might even have thought, did one not know better, artfully.
“It seems,” said Brenner, angrily, “that you choose to torture me.”
“You are of the home world,” she said. “Surely, in virtue of your conditioning, how I am, or might appear, does not matter. In virtue of your conditioning you cannot see me as what I am, a woman.”
“It seems you wish to be seen as an object,” he said.
“A woman,” she said.
“An object!” he said.
“An object of desire, I trust,” she said.
Brenner was silent, angry.
“A woman, the whole woman,” she said, “wishes to be seen as an object of desire.”
“You are sexual,” he said, angrily.
“Is that a reproach?” she asked.
He did not answer.
“Yes,” she said. “I am sexual! I do not deny it any longer. I am tired of denying it. I am tired of pretending to be what I am not.”
“You must keep such weaknesses to yourself,” he said.
“That is no more a weakness than the fact that I can think, that I can feel, that I breathe, that my heart beats.”
“Then it is an ugliness,” said Brenner.
“No!” she said. “No more than those other things, no more than thought and feeling, no more than breathing and the beating of the heart!”
Brenner regarded her.
“It is not ugly,” she said. “It is beautiful!”
Brenner did not respond to her.
“Do you find me ugly?” she asked.
“No,” said Brenner.
“I am pleased,” she said.
“Doubtless many men have put you well to their purposes,” he said, angrily.
“Yes!” she said. “They have! And I have served them well, or to the best of my ability, and sometimes in terror!”
“I see,” said Brenner.
“They get what they want from me,” she said. “They take it, if they wish.”
“Doubtless the zard also uses you,” said Brenner.
“Certainly women of our species figure in the perversions of many other species, as you must suspect,” she said.
“I see,” said Brenner, bitterly. He did not doubt but what certain aliens could simply take the women of his species away from the men of his species, and use them as they wished. The men of his species, it seemed, were on the whole quite weak. They could not even keep their own women for themselves. On the other hand, he did not think that aliens would attempt that on the occasional strong worlds where his own species was dominant. On such worlds, as he understood it, men of his species kept their women for themselves.
“But the zard does not so touch me,” she said. “It is not that he is kind, or noble. It is just that he is not interested in such things. In this fashion he is a quite normal zard. He is not a pervert. Surely you are aware of the rareness of interspecific attraction.”
“Yes,” Brenner admitted. This rareness was to be expected, of course, given genetic selections.
“Do you think you would feel attracted to a female zard?”
“I do not think so,” said Brenner. He had once seen one, on Naxos, at a spaceport, or he thought he had seen one.
“It is the same sort of thing,” she said.
Brenner nodded.
“Would you like me better if I had scales, bulging eyes, and a tail?”
“No,” said Brenner. To be sure, this was not the answer required by his conditioning program, which was that it would not make a difference. This had to do with the equivalence of life forms, and such.
Brenner regarded her. He did not doubt but what beauty might be species relative, for example, that he and the zard might not agree on the nature of feminine charms, but that did not mean that it did not exist, either for him or for the zard. Fruit does not become unreal because there is more than one variety. Certainly Brenner found the young woman before him extremely beautiful. Indeed, she seemed to him, now, to be the most beautiful female he had ever seen. And he did not think that he was isolated in this sort of thing. Even men on Naxos, he was sure, with their rifles and whips, would agree. And even many other life forms, he was sure, though they might not find her of sexual interest, might recognize that she was an unusually lovely specimen of a human being, and would be more marketable than otherwise on that basis.
“Consider the scandalous silk you wear,” said Brenner, angrily. “It is th
e sort of thing in which a slave might be put. In such silk it seems you belong upon an auction block!”
“We might ascend a block in such silk, or more,” she smiled, “but it is not likely it would be upon us when we left the block.”
Brenner regarded her.
“I have been upon such a block, on Damascus,” she said, “when my contract was sold.”
She changed her position, to kneel. She arranged her silk. Then she again looked up, at Brenner.
“On the block, though we were free women, instant and perfect obedience was required of us,” she said, “even as it is of slaves.”
“Did you not demur?”
“No,” she laughed, “or at most once, briefly.”
“Oh?” asked Brenner, interested.
“They have whips,” she said.
“Not sophisticated electronic devices?”
“No,” she said. “On Damascus, as on many worlds, they are very traditional.”
“I see,” said Brenner.
“But the whip is very effective,” she said, “perhaps in its primitive simplicity and meaning even more so than more complex electronic devices. We understand the whip.”
“‘We’,” asked Brenner.
“Females,” she said. “At least once we have felt it.”
“I see,” said Brenner.
“Yes!” she laughed.
“Did you demur?” he asked.
“I did not really need to feel the lash,” she said, “but I was curious about it and so once I was hesitant. Then, instantly, I felt the lash. I did not know it could be like that. Then, I assure you, I was hesitant no longer. Too, to be sure, I was stung by the laughter from the buyers, the onlookers, and such.”
“Who were the auctioneers, the brokers?”
“On Damascus, zards, of course,” she said.
“But they would presumably have, as it seems you have earlier suggested, little or no interest in your movements, your posings, and such—such things I presume being expected of you on the block—”