by John Norman
"Split your legs," he said.
I did so, obediently.
In spite of my terror, I felt incredibly alive doing this, obeying him. He crouched near me. He put the whip on the rug.
"You are a virgin?" he asked.
"Yes!" I said.
"Are you lying?" he asked.
"No!" I said.
"If you are lying," he said, "you will be whipped."
I looked at him, from my back. I could not begin to understand a man who was so strong. How absurd it seemed! Did he not know that women could do anything with impunity, that no matter what we did, even if it were to bring about the destruction of a man" s manhood and the ruination of his life, we were never punished? And yet this man seemed ready to punish me for so little as a lie, or perhaps for something as insignificant as simply not being fully pleasing to him! What sort of man was this? It was almost as though he were not a man of Earth! How had he managed to escape his weakening? Has he, somehow, not been suitably trained and conditioned? How different he seemed from a man of Earth! Was he one of the rare men of Earth, I wondered, who had seen through the debilitating and demeaning hoaxes of his society, who had cast forth from him, like poisons from his body, the unnatural and pathological conditioning programs to which he had been subjected?
"Do you understand?" he asked.
"Yes," I said.
"I wonder if you really do," he said.
My lip trembled.
"You might perhaps think of lying now to a man," he said, "but I assure you, my dear, the time will come when you would be terrified to even think of lying to a man."
I was silent.
"Hold still," he said.
I tensed.
"This will only take a moment," he said. "I will be extremely gentle." I pulled back a bit.
But he was gently, extremely gentle.
"Is she a virgin?" asked one of the men standing nearby, the third man, he near the table on which rested the attachA© case.
"Yes," said the man beside me.
I blushed, hotly.
The fellow near the attachA© case then turned to it, and seemed to sort through some objects within it. Then he found one and placed it on the table. I do not know if I could have told what it was, in the shadows, had I been standing. Lying as I was, of course, I probably could not, from my position, have seen what it was even had the room been as light as it had been long ago, some three months ago, on that bright afternoon when I had for the first time to my knowledge found myself under the eyes of my current captor. Whatever it was, it did not seem large. It made a metal sound when placed on the table.
"Are you going to rape me now?" I whispered.
"No," he said.
"No?" I asked.
"No," he said.
"Why not?" I asked.
"You are a virgin," he said.
"I don" t understand," I said.
He smiled.
"But if you are not going to rape me," I said, "what is this about?" "Get on your knees," he said, standing up.
I rose again to my knees, with a small sound of bells, the chain leash on my neck.
He seemed a bit angry. The other two men, too, he near the attachA© case, and he who held my leash, his fist now close to the back of my neck, seemed somewhat angry. I gather they had not been particularly pleased to learn that I was a virgin. Had it not been for that I gathered they would have seem to it that I pleased them muchly.
"If I am not to be raped," I said, "I do not understand what is going on. What is this all about?"
"Have no fear," said the man, "eventually, in your new life, you will be well and frequently raped. Indeed, your life, in effect, will be one of rape." "My new life?" I said. "I do not understand what is going on."
"She is stupid," said the man behind me, he controlling my leash, allowing me so little tether on it.
"No," said the man before me. "She has her tiny spark of intelligence, nasty, petty and small though it might be, which, hopefully, may perhaps facilitate her survival. It is just that these things, now, are beyond her ken."
"I do not understand," I said.
"Can you not guess, cuddly beauty?" he asked.
"No," I said.
"Remember, long ago," he said, "when we first met, and we spoke of an ancient, beautiful world?"
"Yes," I said.
"A world in which women such as you," he said, "were bought and sold as slaves?" "Yes," I said, uneasily.
"Perhaps you remember saying that that world was gone," he said.
"Yes," I said.
"And perhaps, too," he said, "you may remember me remarking that there was another, not unlike it, which exists."
"Yes," I said.
"You said that that was absurd, as I recall," he said.
"Yes," I said. "And it is absurd!"
I felt the man" s hand tighten a little in the chain. This made me more conscious of the collar on my neck.
"Do you recall what I said then?" he asked.
"Yes," I said. I shuddered.
"What?" he asked.
"That you had seen it," I said.
"It is true," he said.
"You are mad!" I said.
"And you, too, will see it, my dear," he said.
"That is absurd!" I said. "You are mad! You are mad!"
He reached down and picked up the whip.
"You must learn deference to males," he said, "absolute deference to males." I shrank back. But he was coiling the whip. Then with a butt clip and a blade clip, he put it on his belt. I almost fainted.
"There is no such place!" I said.
"I was born there," he said, "as were my fellows."
"There is no such place on Earth!" I said.
"That is true," he said.
"What are you saying?" I gasped. "Who are you?"
"I am Teibar," he said. "My colleagues are Hercon, to your right, and Taurog, behind you, who holds your chain."
"I do not understand such names," I said. They did not even sound like the names of men of Earth!
"I suppose they are unfamiliar to you," he said. "They are not found here, or at least, I suppose, not frequently."
"Here?" I asked.
"Yes," he said, "on Earth."
"I don" t understand," I said.
"I speak of a world which is not Earth," he said.
"Another world?" I asked.
"Yes," he said.
"Another planet?" I asked.
"Yes," he said.
"But you are human, surely," I said, "some sort of human, though perhaps of a different sort from those to whom I am accustomed."
"You fear that I am an alien?" he asked.
"Yes," I whispered.
"In one sense it is true that I, from your point of view, am an alien," he said, "the sense in which I have come from a different world. In another senses, however, I am not an alien, as I am identically a member of your own species." I looked at him.
"My ancestors came from Earth," he said, "rather as yours came from Europe. Have no fear. I am every bit as human as you."
"I see," I said.
"And that is why I am so dangerous to you," he said, "because I am a member of your own species, because I understand you, because I know how you think, because I am familiar with your nasty little mine and emotions, your slyness, your pettinesses, your selfishness, your stupid little tricks, everything about you, and what you are."
"And this world of which you speak," I whispered, "supposing it exists, it is like, in some ways, the other world, the vanished world, of which we spoke?" "Yes," he said.
"Is it like it in one way in particular," I asked.
"It is like it in many ways," he said, seemingly amused. "Do you have anything particular in mind?"
"It is a worlda€”" I asked.
"Yes?" he said.
"Is it a world in which women such as I," I asked, "are bought and sold as slaves?"
"Yes," he said.
"What are you going to do with me?"
I asked.
"Can you not guess?" he asked.
I leaped upward but, cruelly, instantly, with an expert turn and throw of the leash, I was thrown twisting, gasping and choking, to my belly on the rug. I was startled with how excellently, how easily, how smoothly, and with such little thought this had apparently been done. I had been utterly helpless, like something of no account in Taurog" s control. I felt his heel on my back. it pressed me cruelly down on the rug. The collar was on my abraded neck. Some links of its chain lay beside my throat. I lifted my head as I could.
The fellow before me made a sign and Taurog removed his heel from my back. I could still feel its print there. I was frightened. I could feel the rough, flattened coarseness of the carpet beneath me. I noted the difference between the feel of it, from lying upon it on my back, before, and as I did now, on my stomach. It had seemed plain, hard and scratchy to my back, a suitable surface, I supposed, on which a girl" s virginity might be tested, but as I lay on my stomach, to my softness, to my breasts and belly, to my thighs, it seemed oddly different. I was now much more conscious of it, the irregularities of its surface, the tiny, abrupt roughnesses, where a shoe might have moved the pile. I had walked upon that carpet thousands of times. Never before, however, had I lain on it, on my stomach, naked.
"Kneel," said my captor.
I struggled to my knees. My body was still sensitive to the feel of the rug. Taurog had not been gentle with me. I could still feel the print of his heel on my back. I gathered that I was not the sort of thing to which gentleness need be shown.
I looked at my captor.
"It might interest you to know that you have been on our list for some time," he said.
"List?" I said.
"Yes," he said, "lists, actually. You have been on our scouting list for a year, on our consideration list for six months, and on our active list for some three months."
"I am not a slave!" I cried.
Slowly the man approached me and I shrank back. Then he took me by the upper arms and pulled me up, from my knees, before him, until I was half standing. "On the contrary," he said, "my hateful little charmer, you are. I assure you of it. There is not the least doubt about the matter. We know our work. To a practiced eye, a discerning eye, one which is trained to look for, and recognize, such things, you are obviously a slave. The suitable condition for a woman such as you is perfectly clear, deny it and squirm though you might."
"No, no," I whimpered, turning my head away from him.
"Do you think I cannot recognize slaves?" he asked. "It is my business." I moaned.
He shook me, and my head snapped back, and I cried out with misery.
"Look at me," he said.
I did so, terrified.
"I, like many others," he said, "can recognize slaves, and, have no fear, I have recognized you as one."
"No, I whimpered, not wanting to look at him.
"Look at me," he said.
Again I looked at him, terrified.
"It is in your eyes," he said.
"No," I wept.
"Even months ago," he said, "when I looked into your eyes, when you sat in those silly garments, behind that foolish desk, I saw that you, beneath all that cotton and wool, were a naked slave."
"No," I wept.
"And I look into them now," he said, "and see that it is true." "No, no, no!" I wept, turning my head away. I dared not meet those fierce eyes which so frightened me, which seemed somehow to look through me, burning through me like fire, bringing unwelcome, frightening torches to my secret darkness, penetrating to my deepest and most closely guarded secrets, to what lay in the most secret belly and heart of me.
"Shall I have you dance again, before men?" he asked.
"No," I said. "No!"
"Do not fear," he said, "you will dance again before them, and dance as you have never dreamed a woman could dance before men!"
"No!" I wept. "No, no!"
He released me, and I subsided weakly to my knees before him. It seems that one could do little but kneel before such a man. Then, angrily, he thrust silk in my mouth, my own, that which he had made me take off earlier. I was silenced. "On all fours," he said.
I went to all fours before him. A loop of the chain leash hung down by my neck, to the right, a foot or so, and then lopped up to its attachment. I could feel its weight. It turned the collar a little to the right.
The men then spoke for a few moments among themselves. I could not understand the language. It seemed expressive, and highly inflected.
The leader turned to me. I saw him remove the whip from his belt. I put my head down. I bit into the silk, holding it in my mouth. I knew I could not remove it without their permission. He had put it in there. I saw the blade of the whip shake free. I began to tremble. I whimpered, the silk in my mouth. I whimpered that I not be beaten.
"You understand the whip, don" t you slut?" he asked.
I whimpered, plaintively, pleadingly.
"That is one of the few things a little animal like you clearly understands," he mused.
I whimpered.
"Look at her," said Teibar, my captor, to his man, Taurog, he holding my leash, "she has never felt it, but she senses what it might be like to feel it, what it could do to her."
"Yes," said Taurog.
"But then," said Teibar, "I suppose that all females understand the whip, or if they are stupid, and do not, they may be brought swiftly enough to its proper understanding."
"Yes," said Taurog.
I then felt the blade of the whip move lightly upon my back. I shuddered. I wanted to scream, but I could only whimper, plaintively. The whip, it seemed to me, strangely enough, somehow, was not a stranger to me. I seemed to know it. I wondered, wildly, if I had felt it in former lives. Something about it seemed almost a terrifying memory. Could I be remembering it, I wondered, from a sunlit shelf in Memphis, from a patio in Athens, from a post in Rome or a ring, cords on my wrists, in a women" s quarters in Bokara, Basra, Samarkand or Bagdad? Had I felt it before, somewhere, or in many places, and never, even through a succession of lives, forgotten it? No, I told myself, that would be quite unlikely. On the other hand, I had little doubt that many women in the past, in such places, and in thousands of others, had had their behavior corrected with perfection by just such instruments and their kin, such as the switch, the strap, the bastinado. There was something in me, however, which seemed to know the whip, and terribly feared it. I suppose that this might have been an effect only of the startling alarms of my imagination, they informing me with some vividness as to what it might be to feel its stroke, but I suspect, really, that there was more involved. I suspect that there was a kinship of sorts between myself and the whip, that we were perhaps, in some sense, made for one another, that even if I never felt it I recognized it as having something authoritative, and intimate and important, to do with me, and what, in my heart, I secretly was.
I felt the lash brushing my back, twice more. It seemed to do so thoughtfully, meditatively. I whimpered, biting on the wet silk. Tears fell from my eyes to the carpet. I whimpered, tiny, begging sounds, pleading for mercy. It did not matter to him. I was sure, that I was a modern woman in the Twentieth Century. I might as well have been, as far as he cared, only a curvaceous, beautiful barbarian servant in Epidaurus, or, in the keeping of Crusaders, or in the tents of Mongols, a Persian dancing girl. He was literally considering beating me. What we all had in common was that we were women. Similarly I had not the least doubt that if he wished to beat me, he would do so. He was fully capable, I sensed, of doing whatever he might wish to me, and with perfection.
"No, little slut," he said, removing the whip and replacing it on his belt, "it will be better later."
I shook with relief. I sobbed with relief. I was not to be beaten! I was not to be beaten! Then suddenly I shuddered. I wondered what he might possibly have meant, "that it would be better later."
I looked up at him.
"You delicious, meaningless, sly, visco
us, hateful thing," he snarled. I could not understand his animosity, his seeming hatred of me.
"Take her out of my sight," he said to Taurog, "lest I be tempted to kill her."
"Come, little slut," said Taurog. He moved beside me, and then ahead of me, and I felt the pressure of the interior of the collar at the back of my neck, on the left, and the tug of the chain. The collar had now, in response to his movements, shifted on my neck. It was apparently not a ring where the chain was attached but, it now seemed, some sort of fixed-position, heavy, welded-in metal staple. This device, to which the chain was attached, where it now exerted its force, was now under my jaw, to my right. I followed Taurog now, on all fours, the silk stuffed in my mouth. He pulled me back behind the xerox machines, where the sight of me would not offend Teibar. There, with his foot, first against my arms and hands, then against my knees and thighs, brushing them outward, toward the extremities in both cases, he let me know his will with respect to my limbs. I went first to my elbows, and then to my belly. I do not think Taurog spoke much English. He had, however, conveyed his intent to me. I realized, lying there on the cool surface, it is a composition surface in that area, on my belly, naked, among the machines, that it is not always necessary to understand a man" s language to obey him, or for him to command you. I heard Teibar speaking to Hercon, and then Hercon left for somewhere, as I later found out to gather up my things from the ladies" room. Teibar himself whim I thought of as my personal, and most meaningful, captor, stayed in the vicinity of the table, that on which the attachA© case rested. I thought I heard him moving some things about there.
In a short while Hercon returned to the vicinity of the table. A moment later, Teibar said something, apparently to Taurog.
Taurog jerked the chain upward, twice, gently. It was little more than a sound of links, and only the slightest pressures, twice, on the attachment. It was a signal to me.
Taurog made a sound of approval as I rose immediately to all fours. He then led me back tot he table on which the attachA© case rested, where Teibar, whom I feared mostly, my chief captor, waited.