by John Norman
"I am free and independent, and a person, and a true woman," she said.
"Yes, Miss Henderson," I said.
She looked at me. "Do you think I am a slave?" she asked.
"Of course not!" I said. "Of course not!"
"Do not forget it," she said.
"No, Miss Henderson," I said.
We drove on in silence.
"Do you think I might see you again, sometime?" I asked.
"No," she said. Then she looked at me, in fury. "I find you utterly contemptible," she said.
I put down my head. I was miserable. My behavior, so boorish and gross, and my foolish attitudes and opinions, so crudely expressed, so unenlightened, had ruined our possibilities for a meaningful relationship. I was miserable. I was not pleasing to her.
"I am free and independent, and a true person, and a true woman," she said.
"Yes, Miss Henderson," I said.
"And I will never be dependent on a man for anything," she said, "nor will I ever be in a man's power."
"Yes, Miss Henderson," I said, my head down.
"Driver," she said, suddenly, "you have taken a wrong turn."
"Sorry," he said.
He reached under the dashboard and pulled two levers. I heard a movement of metal in the door beside me. An instant later, as he had pulled the second lever, I heard a movement of metal within the door on Miss Henderson's side.
He continued to drive in the same direction, not circling about.
"Driver," said Miss Henderson, "you're going in the wrong direction!"
He continued to drive.
"Driver," she said, irritably, her small voice imperious and cold, "you are going in the wrong direction!"
He did not respond to her.
"Turn back here," she said, as we neared a corner. But he continued to drive straight ahead.
"Can you hear me?" she asked, leaning forward.
"Be silent, Slave Girl," he said.
"Slave Girl!" she cried.
I was startled. Almost instantly, as he threw a lever which must have been beside him, a heavy glass screen or shield sprang up, from the top of the seat in front of us, against which his back rested. It locked in the lateral slot in the top of the cab. At the same time I heard two sudden hisses, coming from the back of the seat in front of us, one on each side. I started to cough. A colorless gas, under great pressure, was being forced into the rear of the cab.
"Stop the cab!" I demanded, coughing, pounding on the glass shield with the flat of my hand. It rang softly. It was thick. I do not even think the driver could hear me, or well hear me, through its weight.
"What is going on?" cried the girl.
The cab had now begun to accelerate. I suddenly discovered that there were no handles by means of which the windows might be rolled down!
"Stop the cab!" I cried, choking.
"I can't breathe," cried the girl. "I can't breathe!"
I struck down at the door handle on my side. It would not move. I tried not to breathe. My eyes smarted. I lunged to the other side of the cab, leaning across the girl. I tried to force down the handle on her side, but it, like that on my side, did not move. I then understood the meaning of the two metallic sounds I had heard earlier, one within each door. Two bolts, one on each side, had been thrust home, securing the doors.
I lunged back to my side of the cab, where I might exert more leverage on the handle of the door on my side.
The girl wept and coughed.
I am strong, but I could not begin to move the steel.
I then, again, this time with the side of my fist, began to strike at the heavy glass. It did not yield.
"Please, stop, driver!" cried the girl.
My lungs felt as though they must burst. I tore off my coat, and my jacket, to thrust it against one of the circular apertures, some four inches in diameter, set flush with the back of the seat, now a barrier, in front of us. It was through these apertures that the gas entered our portion of the cab. Each aperture was protected by narrowly placed steel slats. Because of the slats I could not thrust the jacket into the opening. Gas continued to flow in, permeating the cloth, and seeping about and through it. Gas, too, hissing, continued to flow unremittingly into our portion of the cab through the other aperture.
"Please, stop, driver!" wept the girl, choking. "I will pay you!"
I tried to tear loose then the steel slats from the aperture, to wad the jacket inside. I could not get my fingers behind them.
The girl crouched forward, pressing her hands and face against the heavy glass separating us from the driver. "Please, please," she wept, "please, stop, driver! I will pay you!" She scratched at the window. "I'm pretty!" she said. "I will even let you kiss me, if you want. Let me go! Let me go!"
I began to pound at the glass on my side. It, too, as I instantly realized, with a sickening feeling, was unusually thick. It was not a standard safety glass. The door, though it had appeared a normal door, had been especially constructed to receive it.
Suddenly, spasmodically, miserably, my lungs bursting, I expelled air. Then, as new air rushed into my lungs, I felt sick and half strangled. Whatever the molecules of the gas might be I knew they would be soon, and in volume, within my blood stream. I shook my head. My eyes watered.
The girl shrank back, coughing. She drew her legs up on the seat. She looked at me, miserably. "What do they want of me, Jason?" she asked. "What are they going to do to me?"
"I don't know," I said. "I have no idea." The only thing that occurred to me was so horrifying and fantastic that I could not even bring myself to consider it as a possibility, let alone mention it to the terrified girl. It was simply too horrifying even to think about. I looked at her, she so frightened, in the cape and sheath dress, her feet drawn up beneath her on the leather of the seat of the cab. She was a lusciously beautiful young woman, of the sort that might drive men mad for her. I drove the thought from my mind. No, it could not be! They could not want her for that! But what man would not? No, I told myself, no! It could not be! I dismissed it from my mind. The possibility was too horrifying to even consider as a reality.
"Jason," she said. "Help me!"
I turned from her and, with my fingers, tried to find some crack or crevice between glass and steel, to the side and in front of me, anything that I might be able to exploit. I could find nothing.
I turned back to look at her.
"Jason," she said. "Help me."
"I can't," I said.
She knelt now on the leather of the seat, facing to the side, toward the opposite window. She turned her upper body to face the driver's back. "Please let me go," she cried out, miserably. "I will let you make love to me," she said to the driver, "if you will let me go."
I do not know why I then said to her what I did. For some reason I was furious.
"Shut up," I said to her, "you stupid little slave!"
She looked at me with horror.
"Do you, who are owned," I asked, "think to bargain with masters?"
Did she not know that she, if her captors wished, was theirs in her entirety?
Why had I been so angry with her? Why had such terrible words sprung up so wildly and spontaneously from hitherto unfathomed depths within me?
I looked at her beauty. I saw it then, suddenly, and deliciously and marvelously, as a slave's beauty. In every woman there is a slave, in every man a slaver.
She put down her head, not daring to meet my eyes in that moment.
Why was I so angry with her? Was it because it was others, and not I, who owned her?
She knelt, head down, on the leather of the seat. Gone then was the pretense of her politics. Gone then was the illusion of her freedom and independence, and her arrogance and pride. She was then only a frightened girl and perhaps, I feared, a captured slave.
Then, suddenly, I was again the male of Earth, apologetic, miserable, self-castigating, overcome with anguish. How cruel I had been to her! How grievously I had demeaned her! Did I not know
she was a person?
"Forgive me, Miss Henderson," I wept. "I did not know what I was saying."
She sank down on the seat. I was kneeling then on the floor of the cab.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm sorry." Indeed, I was truly sorry. I had no idea why I had said what I had. In the stress of our strait circumstances it had just welled up from within me, cruelly, insuppressibly, explosively.
Of course she was not a slave! Yet, as I looked upon her, now slumped down, unconscious, on the leather, naught but a pathetic captive, I could not help but remark how maddeningly luscious were her small curves. I could not help but wonder what they would look like, owned, in silk and steel. I could not help but wonder if girls such as Miss Henderson, so fantastically beautiful and feminine, might not, in actuality, be slave girls. If so, why, then, should they not be enslaved? Then I put such thoughts from my mind. The cab, moving swiftly, continued on its way. I could see why men might want Miss Henderson. She would be a prize for the collar. They would not, of course, presumably, want me. I realized now, from the driver's behavior earlier, that he had not counted on my being in the cab. The quarry had not been me, but the beautiful Miss Henderson. It had been an accident that I had been captured as well. Things began to go black. I fought to retain consciousness. I recall looking again at Miss Henderson. I recall, as things began to become dim, the last thing in my field of vision, her lovely ankle. It would look well, I thought, in a loop and ring. I wondered what would be done with me. Then I lost consciousness.
2
Syringes
I felt a bit of cold air, as the door of the cab was opened.
Slowly, painfully, I began to come back to consciousness.
I was aware of Miss Henderson being lifted from the cab.
Then I, too, was removed from the cab, two men dragging me by the arms. We were inside a garagelike structure. The floor was cement. Miss Henderson was laid on her stomach on the cement. The light in the building was furnished by four bulbs overhead. They hung on cords from the ceiling. They had dark metal shades with white-enameled interiors, and were protected by wire frames.
I, too, was placed on my stomach on the cement. I felt my hands being drawn behind my back. They were then, to my consternation, locked in handcuffs.
I saw, from my position on the floor, five men. There was the driver of our cab, three burly fellows, two in jackets and one in a sweater, and one other man, dressed in a rumpled suit, his necktie loose about his throat. He was a large man, and heavy. He had, too, large, heavy hands. He seemed very strong. He was balding, virile.
"Awaken the slave," he said.
One of the men then, from behind, put his hands in Miss Henderson's hair and, rudely, with two hands, pulled her up backwards, she crying out suddenly with pain, awakening, finding herself kneeling, held by the hair, before the heavy man.
"It is you!" she said. "The man from the apartment!"
"You have not been given permission to speak," he said to her.
"I do not need permission to speak," she cried. "I am a free woman! I am not a slave!"
"Oh!" she cried, in pain, as the man's hands, he who held her, tightened in her hair, pulling her head back.
Her small hands, clutching at him, were helpless on his thick wrists.
"You had best form the habit early, of addressing free men as 'Master,' Slave Girl," said the heavy man.
"I am not a slave girl," she cried. Then she cried out in pain, as her hair was twisted. Then she added, "—Master."
The heavy man gestured to the man who held the girl. He released the tension in the girl's hair, but he did not take his hands from it. She gasped. She looked up at the heavy man.
"That is better," he said.
"Yes," she said, "—Master."
How startled I was!
How astonished I was!
Should I not be furious?
Was it not shocking, and deplorable, to hear that word, the word 'Master', on the lips of the proud Miss Henderson?
Was it not horrifying that such a word should escape her lips!
Those pure, soft, vulnerable, kissable lips, which I had for so long longed to press brutally beneath mine!
And how she had said that word, it escaping her so honestly, so plaintively, so confessedly!
How feminine she was, beneath the heel and will of his domination. And under that heel and domination how could she be other than she was, so helplessly, so exquisitely feminine?
The word had escaped her lips.
I had heard it.
The word 'Master'.
Dreadful, dreadful!
But how exciting, too, it was for me to hear the proud Miss Henderson, she to whom I would scarcely dare aspire, she of whom I would scarcely dare dream, address that word to a man!
Indeed, to be perfectly honest, I was thrilled to hear that word, that beautiful, socially exquisite, magnificent, deferent word, on the lips of the proud, prissy, pretentious, sweetly hipped, exquisitely figured, tormentingly beautiful Miss Henderson. No, it was not shocking, it was not deplorable, it was not horrifying. Rather, I realized, it was appropriate, and perfect.
It was absolutely fitting, I suddenly realized, that such as he should be so addressed by such as she.
Her life is due for an interesting change I thought.
The sooner, I thought, she accustoms herself to deference and obedience the better for her. Let her learn quickly, the little fool. These men may not be patient.
These men may not scold and rebuke such as she; rather, they may train such as she, yes, train them, and with iron and leather!
I struggled to suppress these thoughts, to generate comforting dismay and guilt. What a bounder, and cad, I was! Was I so primitive and coarse, so deplorably insensitive, so unimproved, so unreformed, so masculine, as to relish the mere audition of the word 'Master' on the lips of a beautiful woman? Yet I could not repress my envy of the heavy man. Yes, envy! And, too, how natural it seemed that one such as Miss Henderson should so address one such as he.
I dared not even conjecture what might be my response should such a woman so address me, so utter such to me.
Would I not hasten her to her feet, and strive to correct her behavior, attempting to educate her, to shame her, to improve her, into pseudomasculinity, or, better, jejune, androgynous postures and pretenses, or would I leave her on her knees, waiting, beautiful, and ready, where she belonged?
Away with such barbarous thoughts, I thought.
She is property, I thought. Look at her! See her! They are ours, I thought. They are all property, property!
Can fifty thousand, a hundred thousand, two hundred thousand, a million, three million, years of nature be mistaken?
No, I thought. Away with such thoughts! What a brute was the heavy fellow! Poor, poor Miss Henderson!
"To be sure," he said, "the point is moot, and interesting. There is a sense in which you are a slave, and a sense in which you are not a slave. The sense in which you are a slave is the sense in which I am justified in addressing you as a slave, and referring to you as a slave. That is the sense of the natural slave. Do not react so, my dear. It is true. You are a natural slave. This is fully clear to anyone who is familiar with such matters. Any slaver, any master, anyone who knows women, even another woman, but one knowledgeable in such matters, could tell it at a glance. Do not fret. It is simply true. And, indeed, if you derive any reassurance from this remark, you are one of the most obvious natural slaves I have ever seen. Your slavery, already, lies almost at the surface."
"No," she said, "no!"
"Your culture has provided little scope for the satisfaction and fulfillment of your slave needs," he said. "Other cultures, you will discover, are more tolerant, more welcoming, more open, and generous, in this respect."
"No!" she cried.
"The sense in which you are not a slave, of course," he said, "is a trivial one. You have not yet been placed within the actual institution of slavery. You are not yet a legal slave,
a slave under law. You have not yet, for example, been branded, nor have you been put in a collar, nor have you performed a gesture of submission."
She looked at him with horror.
"But do not fear," he said, "you will eventually find yourself in full compliance with any necessary legal pedantries. You will eventually find that you are, fully and legally, under law, a slave, totally a slave, and only a slave." He smiled at her. "You may now say, 'Yes, Master,'" he said.
"Yes, Master," she whispered.
"Put the slave on her stomach," he said.
The man who held her hair threw the girl forward. She broke her fall with her hands. He then, with his foot, pressed her down to her stomach. I could see the mark of his boot on the back of her white dress.
"Put your hands at the sides of your head, palms down on the cement," said the heavy man.
"Yes," she said.
"Yes, what?" he asked.
"Yes, Master," she said. Then she cried out, "You can't enslave me!"
"Slavery is neither a new nor unusual phenomenon for women," he said. "In the course of human history many millions of lovely women have been enslaved. They have found themselves at the feet of masters. You are not special. Your fate is in no way historically unique."
He then removed a leather case from a white-enameled cabinet to one side. He placed the contents of the case on a steel table against one wall, on which there were certain tools. It contained two vials, cotton and a set of disposable syringes.
"I can't be a slave," she said. "I'm Beverly Henderson!"
"Enjoy your name while you still have it," he said. "Later you will be called only by those names by which masters please." I then understood, as I had not before, the remark of the heavy man in the apartment, which had been reported to me by the girl, that she might not have her name long. A slave, of course, would have no name in her own right. She must wear, docilely, any name her master might see fit to put upon her.
The girl moaned.
The heavy man then poured some fluid from one of the vials onto a piece of cotton.
"But, perhaps," he said, "your master will choose to call you Beverly. That, it seems to me, is a lovely name for a slave."