23 Claudia, Slave

The slave lay before me, on her stomach, over a pile of rope, aft on the Tais. Her head was down. Her neck was chained to a ring on the deck. "Is it you?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"I am afraid of you," she said. As a slave she had a right to this fear, indeed, a right to the fear of any man.

"Do you wish to beg for mercy?" I asked.

"Would my pleas be meaningful?" she asked. "I am a slave. Will masters not do with me as they please, regardless of my pleas?"

"They will do with you as they please," I said, "but if they harken to your pleas, then it may be that what will please them will be to do with you as you plead."

"Then by all means," she said. "I plead for mercy!"

"But will it be shown to you?" I asked.

"I do not know, Master," she whispered.

"That, you see," I said, "is what the masters will decide."

"Yes, Master," she said.

"You were once Lady Claudia, of Ar's Station," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Who are you now?" I asked.

"Claudia!" she said, "a slave."

She was pretty, lying on her belly, on the ropes, her head down. "Lift yourself, Claudia, slave," I said.

"Oh!" she said.

She was then held helplessly. She could not so much as move without giving me great pleasure.

"What is wrong?" I asked.

"I am afraid I will yield to you," she whispered.

"And what is wrong with that?" I asked.

"But as a shameless slave!" she wept.

"Do so," I said.

Then, sobbing, then gasping with elation, with relief, she yielded. I could hardly hold her for a moment, even with her small body, so grateful, so wild, so eager she was in her sudden, joyous, spasmodic helplessness.

Then she was on her belly, sobbing, pressing down into the ropes, as though she would hide herself in them. Her head was down, turned to one side, the side of it pressed against the ropes. She sobbed wildly, helplessly, poignantly, not able to understand her own behavior, shamed.

I crouched beside her.

"So that is how a slave is used!" she gasped.

"Sometimes," I said.

"Surely no free woman would be used in such a manner!" she said.

"Presumably not often, at any rate," I granted her. I did know that free women might be, and occasionally were, used in that way, for example, to insult them, or prepare them for the collar. To be sure, the man who used them in that fashion might as well be, I supposed, for most practical purposes, their master. "Do you presume, incidentally," I asked, "to arrogate to yourself the rights or modesties, or the least of the prerogatives of the free woman?"

"No, Master!" she said.

"Do you presume, further," I asked, "to inquire into even the least of the sexual habits or activities of free women, whatever they might be?"

"No, Master!" she said. Her response amused me. Naturally both free women and slaves, as both are women, are very much interested in one another's sexual activities. It is very natural. To be sure, unless the slave is a bred slave, most of this interest is on the part of the free women, for the slaves have usually, at one time or another, been free women, and have a very good idea of how narrow, dull, limited and mediocre is the sex life of the free woman. indeed, the matter is paradoxical, for the free women have a tendency both to inquire eagerly into the behaviors expected of slaves, and enjoined upon them, and, at the same time, commonly profess horror and scandal at what they hear. "Such things are no longer of concern to you, are they?"

"No, Master!" she said.

"And you are a little liar, aren't you?" I asked.

"Forgive me, Master!" she said.

"In any event," I said, "you need not concern yourself any longer with the sexual activities, the proprieties, and such, of the free woman. Your attention is now to be more properly focused on your own business and concerns, for example, such things as the many intricate, exciting, complex and delicious sexual modalities and behaviors of the female slave.

"Yes, Master," she said.

The moons were full. The slave was pretty. It was late. We were one day out from Port Cos.

I then turned her, and lifted her, as I had Publia, holding her knees up, close to her belly. Her body, like Publia's, was a small, curvaceous delight. I then put her on her back, as I had Publia, on the coils of rope.

She turned her face away from me, that out eyes not meet.

"Look at me," I said.

She turned her eyes toward mine, reluctantly, but helplessly, commanded to do so. They were filled with tears. Her lip trembled.

"Surely," I said, "you have been richly used before now. This is not your first night at the ring."

"But I know you," she said.

"And do you think any man can be known as well as a slave knows her master," I asked, "or that any woman can be known as well as a slave is known by her master?"

"I do not know," she said.

"No," I said. "The relationship of master and slave is the relation of total, helpless intimacy."

"Yes, Master," she whispered, frightened.

"To be sure," I said, "the knowing of a master by his slave, and of a slave by her master, cannot occur immediately. It is a natural relationship, and thus like any other natural relationship, for example, between a sleen and its master, it will take time."

"Of course," she said.

"Do you have any questions?" I asked.

"How can a man who truly knows a woman treat her as a slave?" she asked. "It is easy," I said.

She regarded me, frightened.

"His knowledge even facilitates the matter," I said.

"Yes," she said, thoughtfully. "It would."

"There is even a special pleasure in doing so," I said, "in mastering, and commanding, she who is most intimately known."

"I understand," she said.

"Similarly," I said, "the nature of women, what they truly are, most deeply within themselves, apart from, and beneath the gross, accumulated encrustations of artificialities and conventions, which must be peeled away, to reveal the true woman, naked and loving, is important."

"I love men," she confessed, seeming scarcely daring to whisper it. "Are you ashamed of that? I asked.

"Should I not be? she asked.

"No," I said. "You are no longer a free woman. You no longer need to conceal your feelings. You may now openly and freely admit your interest in men and your love for them."

"The intimacies of which you spoke, the knowledges, the closeness," she said, breathlessly, holding to me. "Such things are at the discretion of the master, are they not?"

"Largely," I said.

"And not all masters grant them, do they?" she asked.

"Of course not," I said. I could not deny to her that some masters are heartless, that some are inflexible and cruel. And the coins of such men, of course, have as much buying power as those of anyone else. In fact, sometimes I have suspected that slavers enjoy throwing a girl who is still proud, or who has given them some difficulties, into such clutches. Sometimes after only a week in the power of such brutes a girl is almost willing to give her life to achieve a kind word, or a moment of intimacy. She is then ready to be a slave fully. The slave may be given more or less leash, as seems fitting, but she must always understand that it can be shortened at a moment's notice, and that the whip is always ready.

"How proud I was as a free woman!" she said, shuddering.

"You are no longer a free woman," I said.

"And even a moment ago," she said, "I, as a slave, dared to question your usage of me!"

"That is more serious," I said.

"How proud I was!" she exclaimed. "Punish me!"

"No," I said.

"I was not pleasing!" she said.

"Do not concern yourself with the matter," I said. To be sure, had I taken offense, I would have seen to it that she was much concerned with the matter. "In the cell, the day you escaped," she said, smiling, "do you remember how you lay over me, covering my body with your own."