even the chain on my ankle in the kennel. How I was stimulated by the bars of a cage, by ropes on my body, by the commands of a master, by the lightness and brevity of a tunic, by my nudity! And my bondage itself, the very condition itself, as I had anticipated even on my former world, that I would be owned and must obey, was a joy to me. How I then pitied free women, and began to understand why they hated us so. We were the most joyful, and truest of women, the slaves of our masters.
“You will return me to my kennel,” I said.
“No,” he said.
“I do not understand,” I said.
“You will be kept in another way,” he said.
“Please,” I said, “keep Laura — keep her for yourself!”
“I do not own you,” he said.
“She would be yours,” I said, “your slave!”
“I thought you hated me,” he said.
“I love you!” I sobbed.
My left cheek, my head struck to the side, stung with the sudden, fierce, angry, open-handed slap of his smiting right hand, and I might have reeled and fallen, save that his left hand, its grip close to the leash collar, held me upright, in place. Tears streamed from my eyes, and my cheek burned with pain. He relaxed his grip, enough that I could get to my knees, and I knelt before him. I must look up at him, for the leash was pulled up, taut, and tight, gripped in his fist. “Forgive me, Master,” I said.
He looked down upon me, with a savage, angry, ferocious light in his eyes, with all the contempt with which the free may regard a slave.
“Even a beast may love her master,” I said.
“Do not dare speak of love, you blasphemous she-tarsk,” he said. “You are not a free woman but what you should be, a meaningless slave. You are an article to be used, an object purchased for work and pleasure, for inordinate raptures of unspeakable pleasure, to be derived from your body whenever and however a master might please.”
“So use me!” I begged.
He drew back his right hand, again, angrily.
“Please do not strike me, Master!” I said.
He lowered his hand, but he kept the leash taut. I was unable to lower my head.
“Does Master not want Laura?” I asked.
“You should be fed to sleen,” he said.
“You muchly caressed me in the forest,” I said. “You made me such that I could not help but respond to you as a slave girl to her master.”
“As you would do to any man,” he said.
“We are slaves,” I said.
“There was no other at hand,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” I said.
He relaxed the leash, and I put down my head, gratefully.
“I thought Master might want Laura,” I said.
“Laura,” he said, “is worthless.”
“Still,” I whispered.
“We must see to your keeping,” he said.
“Buy me,” I begged.
He laughed, but I did not care. In begging to be bought, one acknowledges that one can be bought, and thus acknowledges that one is a slave. But I did not care. I was a slave. I had known this from long ago, from the time transforming changes had occurred in my body, a consequence of which was my realization that I belonged in a man’s collar.
“Who would want a worthless slave?” he said.
“I think many men,” I said.
“Your face is acceptable,” he said, “and you are not badly curved.”
“Surely,” I said, “there is a slave ring anchored in the floor of your hut, to which I might be chained.”
“To the same ring to which Asperiche is chained?” he said.
“If it be Master’s wish,” I said.
“I do not chain just anything to a slave ring,” he said.
“I am sure many men would find me acceptable at such a ring,” I said. “And was it not Master who brought me to the collar?”
“You are an insolent she-sleen,” he said.
“The whip will teach me timidity and deference,” I said.
“On your feet,” he said.
I rose up, and stood before him, head down.
“I am not to be returned to my kennel?” I said.
“No,” he said.
“And I am not to be taken to your hut?”
“No,” he said.
“I do not understand,” I said.
He then turned about, and I followed, on the leash. He began to descend toward the river. On the way, we passed a number of slave girls, several of whom smiled contemptuously as I was led by. “Fool,” said one. “Caught slave,” said another.
At the shore I looked across the broad Alexandra. The remains of the framework in which the great ship had