"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.