"s.l.u.t," he said.

"Forgive me my slavery," I said. "I am a woman!"

"How I have fought my weakness, my loving you!" he exclaimed. "I put you from me. I avoided you. I held you in contempt. I abused you. I kept you at a distance. I treated you with coldness and cruelty! But each instant I was fighting myself, wanting to seize you, to sweep you into my arms, to crush you to me!"

The room seemed to rush about me. It grew dark for a moment. I gasped for breath. I feared I might lose consciousness.

"Yes," he cried. "I love you!"

I fought to remain conscious. Then, again, I was fully conscious. I regarded him, he in such misery, such torment, across the room.

"I must not love you!" he cried. "I must not permit myself to do so!"

I struggled to my knees.

I was in the presence of a free man, indeed, of my master.

He looked at me, wildly.

"But I cannot help myself," he said. "I love you!"

"You gave no sign of this, Master," I said.

"I do not know whether I hate myself or you," he said, "or both, I for my weakness, you for having done this to me, and for being the most exciting and desirable female in all the world!"

"Master finds me of interest?" I asked.

"To see you is to want you!" he said, in fury.

He turned about, again, and again struck the wall. "I must not love you," he cried.

"Surely some men, Master," I said, "love their slaves!"

"You are a mere collared barbarian!" he said.

"Yes, Master," I said.

He spun about, in fury. "And in hating you, and loving you," he said, "I sensed the role you had to play, and the dangers which might attend upon it. I knew that those in the house, of those of Cos, might be among the very few who could recognize you again. I therefore guarded my feelings, confessing to no one the torment in my heart, occasioned by a mere branded slip of a slave. Thus it was that in recruiting one to seek you out and cut your throat it was I who came first, and naturally, to the attention of my superiors, they aware of my hatred for you, my loathing for you, but not of my l.u.s.t for you, my unquenchable desire for you. Indeed, other guards declined the office, unwilling to hunt you down and cut your throat, which says much for your popularity, you rampant, exquisite, arrant little charmer."

"I am grateful for your deception, Master," I said. "I owe my life to you."

"I did not know how I would behave until the moment I had the knife at your throat," he said, "but then I knew I could not, at least at that moment, end your life, even though you were the most unworthy of slaves."

"At least at that moment?" I asked, uncertainly.

"You are a slave," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said.

We are subject to the masters in all things.

"I have dreamed of owning you," he said.

"I am yours," I said.

He retrieved the knife and replaced it in its sheath. I was pleased to see it disappear therein.

He reached down and recovered the whip. He coiled it. He then came to where I knelt and put the coils under my chin, lifting it up.

"Yes," he mused. "I think anyone would find you quite pretty."

I did not speak.

"Those from whom I purchased you said that you begged for use, and had to be cuffed."

"I begged for use," I said. "It is not my belief that I had to be cuffed."

"You should be whipped," he said.

"As master wishes," I said.

But he turned about, and put the whip, coiled, on the small table in the room.

Then he returned to stand before me, musingly.

"You would crawl, begging, to the feet of any man," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said.

"You would have begged use from me, even without the threat of the whip, even before you knew who I was," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said.

He then struck me, lashing my head to the side, with the back of his hand. I lost my balance, and fell to my side, to the stones. I lay there, a chastised slave.

"Forgive me, Master," I said. "Recall that I am only a slave."

"On your knees," he said.

I struggled, again, to my knees. How could he blame me for crawling to men, for begging use? Did he not understand that I was a slave, truly! Did he have some unreasonable concept of what I should be, something in his mind, something with little, if any, relation to my realities? Could he not accept me as I was, truly, a helpless female, and slave? Other men had not been critical of this!

"I am appet.i.tious, Master," I said. "I am the prisoner of my needs. I am subject to the forces within me. I cannot help myself. I am what I am, nothing else. Please do not expect me to be other than I am."

He regarded me.

"It is my hope," I said, "that you will permit me to be what I am.

Please do not ask me to pretend to be other than I am."

"How strange that I should care for you," he said, "for that is what you are, truly, a mere slave."

"That I am a slave," I said, "I trust does not make me less attractive."

"No," he said. "It makes you a thousand times more attractive."

I smiled, shyly.

"Why do you smile?" he asked.

"Perhaps master's anger with me, with my needs, my appet.i.tes, and such, has less to do with his criticality of such things in a slave, for he surely realizes that they are expected, and even required in her, as it has to do with other matters."

"Yes?" he said.

"Perhaps master is jealous, perhaps he is angry that I might be found pleasing by others."

"Beware," he said.

"Perhaps he is possessive," I said, "perhaps he wants me, somehow, all to himself."

"Be silent," he said, angrily.

"Yes, Master," I said, falling silent.

How attractive he was!

I spread my knees before him, scarcely aware of my action.

"There!" he said, suddenly, pointing. "See! There! That is what I mean, you little barbarian s.l.u.t!"

"Forgive me, Master!" I said. "Shall I close my knees?"

"Close your knees?" he said.

"Yes, Master," I said.

"Do not dare to close your knees," he snarled, "slave! You are before your master!"

"Yes, Master," I said, happily. I saw that he would be strict with me, that he would truly own me, that he would get much from me.

How pleased I was to belong to him! He was such as knew the handling of a slave. I would be helpless in his hands.

"I own you," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said. "I am yours, totally yours!"

"Do you wish to be totally mine?" he asked.

"Yes, Master!" I said.

"Liar!" he said.

"No, Master!" I said.

"But whether you wish it or not," he said, angrily, "it is true!"

"I know, Master!" I cried, delightedly.

"Seeing you I become enflamed," he cried. "I cannot help myself! No longer can I resist!"

"Take me!" I wept.

"s.l.u.t, s.l.u.t!" he murmured, lifting me by the arms half from my knees.

"Yes, Master," I begged him. "Own me! Own me!"

In his heat, his frenzy, he pressed me back to the stones, making use of the slave.

"You are my master!" I cried.

"You are my slave!" he cried.

"Yes, my master!" I wept.

He then confirmed upon me, in merciless rapture, his ownership.

I was in no doubt of it.

I had felt the first time I had seen him, the first time I had knelt before him, looking up at him, the first time I had kissed his whip, that I was somehow his, that it was to him that I belonged. And I am sure I would have felt this way even had I not been in chains, even had I not been within the inst.i.tution of bondage, where such as I was subject to explicit legal ownership. But more astonishingly rewarding to me was the now-present suspicion, if not revelation, that the chemistries involved, the fitting together of parts, must have been mutual.

As I had looked up and seen my master, so, too, he must have looked down and, at his feet, seen his slave.

Again I squirmed. Again I writhed, in his arms.

Again, to my joy, he showed me no mercy.

I screamed out, in the dark bas.e.m.e.nt, my love for him, and again, and again, my submission.

Later he thrust me to his feet, and I lay there, in my collar, like a dog.

I was enraptured, that he permitted me to remain near him, he finished with me, I, only a slave.

"How is it that I could care for a slave?" he asked, lying on his back, staring at the ceiling.

I did not respond.

"I love you," he said.

"When you tire of me," I said, "you may sell me."