Brenner smiled to himself in the darkness. He wondered if she recalled his remark to her earlier in the evening. He thought that perhaps she did not now, but might recollect it later. In any event, she had often enough earlier, in one modality or another, begged his touch.
“You beg my touch?” smiled Brenner. He saw fit to remind her, thusly, of his earlier remark. His vanity might as well be indulged, he thought.
There was a pause. He sensed her recollection, and her surprise, and perhaps her chagrin, or embarrassment.
“Yes,” she said, suddenly, softly, defiantly in the darkness. “I beg your touch!” Then her voice broke. “I beg it, desperately,” she said. Brenner wondered if it had been anything in their last intimacy which had evoked this response, which had discovered something to her, something that now made her as she was. Need and vulnerability had been manifest in her pathetic accents. How much power he now sensed he had over her.
“I think I might know now what it is, or something of what it might be, to be a slave,” she whispered.
Brenner was silent.
“I did not know it could be like this,” she said.
Brenner was silent.
“I beg your touch,” she said, “I think as might a slave whose needs are upon her!”
Brenner did not break the silence.
“Please be merciful,” she said. “Do not have me suffer. Do not leave me dangling like this!”
Brenner had heard of such things as slave need, of course. He supposed it possible that something of the sort could occur in a free woman, particularly one under contract, one at the mercy of others. Such needs in the slave, of course, are generally a function of what she is, and her entire condition. Also, cruelly, the slave is sometimes given no choice in the matter of these needs, but must submit to, and acquiesce in, their release and efflorescence, until she finds herself, as was her owner’s intent, the helpless prisoner of their implacable, frequently recurrent, profound demands. It is said that such needs, and love, are the strongest bonds to which slaves are subject, that they are stronger than bars of iron and bands of steel.
“Get on your back,” said Brenner, with which command she immediately complied. He then rose up, on one elbow. He touched her, lightly.
“Oh, yes!” she said. “Yes, please!”
He then realized how helpless she was, not merely physically, but, more importantly, psychologically.
“Please, don’t stop,” she begged.
In a few moments Brenner placed his hand over her mouth, that her cries might not carry throughout the establishment, perhaps disturbing the rest of others. How she squirmed, and bucked, and writhed! How helpless she was, so much in the grip of her reflexes, so much in the careless, merciless bondage of her femaleness! Who would have thought there could be so much vitality, so much force, so much strength and power, in so small and beautiful, so soft, so deliciously curved, a body? Beneath the palm of his sweating hand, hastily placed, pressing firmly downward, Brenner felt her lips and, beneath them, her teeth. She could not, beneath his hand, open her mouth, nor could she scarcely move. What would have been screams of ecstasy became no more than tiny sounds, no more, by his action, permitted to her. Then, later, after the subsidence of her tumult, its crisis passed, she lay back, not much moving, and whimpered, pleadingly. He removed his hand from her mouth. His palm was wet, from her mouth, and from his sweat. The side of his hand, too, was wet, as tears had streaked down her cheeks, stopped by its barrier.
She did not speak.
“You yielded,” he said.
“Yes,” she said.
“Helplessly,” he said.
“Yes,” she whispered, in the darkness.
He kissed her.
“I love being this helpless,” she said, “so much yours.”
“You speak as might a slave,” he said.
“Yes,” she said.
He rose from the bed and went to the side of the room, to the lamp. He turned it on, and up, just a little, setting the shade in such a way as to diffuse the light. He looked back upon her, on the bed, now on one elbow, turned to him, her hands held behind her, in the shadows.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I was curious about something,” he said.
“Oh?” she said.
“Lie back,” he said.
She lay on her back, and turned her head to her left, to look at him.
“Yes,” he said. “It is true.”
“What?” she asked.
“You are beautiful enough to be a slave,” he said.