"I do not understand," she said.
"I do not really understand either," I admitted.
"If a man can be found who is like, a woman and a woman can be found who is like a man does this not suggest, rather, that men and women are really different?"
I was silent.
"If an urt could be found which was like a sleep," she said, "and a sleep could be found which was like an urt, would this show that urts and sleep were the same?"
"Of course not," I said. "That would be preposterous"
"What is the difference?" she asked.
"I do not know," I said. "There must be one."
"Oh," she said. "And," she said, "would not the feminine man and the masculine woman, by their comparative rarity, tend not to cancel out the obvious differences between men and women but rather, in their relative uniqueness, tend to point up the contrasts and differences even more vividly?"
I began to grow irritated. "The contrasts, over time," I said, "will grow less. Education now, on my world, is oriented toward the masculinization of women and the feminization of men. Women must become men and men must try to be like women. That is the key to happiness."
"But men and women are different," she said. She looked sick.
"They must behave as if they were the same," I said.
"But what of their true natures?" she asked.
I shrugged. "Their true natures are unimportant," I said. "Let the heads be shaped by boards. Let the feet be bound with tight cloths."
"But will there not come a time of screaming," she asked, "a time of rage, of lifting of the knife?"
I shrugged. "I do not know," I said. "Let us hope not." I did know that frustration tended to produce aggression and destructiveness. It did not seem unlikely that the frustrations of my world, particularly those of men, might precipitate the madness and irrationality of thermonuclear war. Aggression, displaced, would presumably be ventilated against an external enemy.- But the trigger would have been pulled. It would be unfortunate if the last recourse left to men to prove to themselves that they were men was the carnage of contemporary, technological conflict. Yet I knew men who hungered for this madness, that the walls of their prisons might be destroyed, even though they themselves might die screaming in the flames.
But perhaps they might reclaim their surrendered manhood before they themselves, and their world, became the helpless victims of its thwarted furies.
Manhood cannot be forever denied. The beast will walk at our side, or it will destroy us.
"Am I to understand," she asked, "that the men of your world do not take their women in hand, and throw them to their feet?"
"Of course not!" I said. "Our women are treated with total honor, and dignity and respect," I said. "They are treated as our equals."
"Poor men, poor women," she said.
"I do not understand," I said.
"You would make a love slave your equal?" she, asked.
"Of course," I said.
"You cheat her then of her opportunity to be overwhelmed, and to be forced to serve and love. You preclude her then from the fulfillment of her deepest nature."
I said nothing.
"If you will not be a man," she asked, "how can she be a woman?"
"Do you think that a woman is a slave?" I asked, scornfully.
"I have been in the arms of strong men," she said. "Yes."
I was stunned.
"You are wrong!" I cried. "You are wrong!" I was afraid, terribly, then, for if what she said was true then there might be within me a master. But if a woman should kneel before me and beg a collar would I not be terrified to enclose her lovely neck in its inflexible grasp? Would I not be afraid to own her, to assume the mighty responsibility of the mastery? Did I have the power, the strength, the courage, to be a master? Did I fear I would be unable to control and tame, and make mine, such a sinuous, beautiful animal? No, I surely would have, reddening and frightened, hurried her to her feet, trying to embarrass and shame her for having displayed her needs. I would have to encourage her to be a man. If she, too, were a man, then I could, with a clear conscience, leave the woman in her unsatisfied.
"And you are a fool," she said.
It irritated me that she had called me this, but I reminded myself that I was a man of Earth, and women might annoy or insult me as they pleased, with complete impunity. If they were not permitted to do this, how could they respect us?
"I am not surprised," she said, "that women are the equals of such men as you. It seems to me, Jason, that you are quite possibly the equal of a woman."
I did not speak.
"You are despicable," she said.
"It should please you," I said, "if you are the equals of men."
"Women dream not of equals," she said, "but of masters."
I sat back against the wall, angrily.
"It is degrading to wear a collar in this cell," she said. Then she lay down on the blanket, bitterly, and turned her back to me.
She did not bother covering her lovely body. Each insolent, luscious curve of her collared slave body was displayed to me, contemptuously, taunting me. It was the insult of a slave girl to an ineffectual slave she did not fear. My fists clenched. A wave of anger swept me. I considered leaping to her, hurling her upon her back, whipping her face back and forth with the palm and then back of my hand, and then, mercilessly, raping her, reminding her that she was only a slave, and a wench that had been given to me for the night. But I did not do this. I controlled myself.
I sat back against the wall, angry. I had tried to relate to her. I looked to the bench, where lay the slave whip. I considered putting it to her beauty, until she begged to serve. Lola would understand the kicks of my feet, the blows of the whip. Those are arguments which any woman can follow. Then I forced such thoughts from my mind. I had failed to relate well to her, in spite of being solicitous and charming, courteous and attentive, in spite of treating her with honor, and with dignity and respect. I treated her as my equal and I was, in return, subjected to ill treatment and scorn. I understood almost nothing of what had occurred. 1 had inked with her; I had treated her with homely comraderie; I had, almost invariably, treated her as a person.
"Are you going to whip me?" she asked.
"I certainly am not," I said.
"I did not think so." she said. Then, with a twist of her body, she rolled onto her back, and stared up at the ceiling. I saw the collar on her throat.
I sat against the wall, and troubled, thought.
Lola did not understand a gentleman, I decided. She was accustomed only to the brutes of Gor. I was too good for her.
"You do not seem grateful to me," I said, angrily.
"Why should I be grateful to you?" she asked.
"You were put in with me to be punished," I said. "I did not punish you."
"How clever were the masters," she said, bitterly. "I must have displeased them grievously."
"I do not understand," I said.
"I have been most cruelly punished," she said.
"I do not understand," I said. "I have not punished you."
Suddenly, surprising me, she rolled onto her stomach and, with her small fists, struck down at the blanket spread over the straw. She began to sob, hysterically. I could not understand her.
"What is wrong?" I asked her.
She leaped from the blanket and, piteously, choking and sobbing, fled to the bars. She pressed her lovely body against them and extended her arms and hands between them, to the silent, empty corridor. "Masters!" she cried. "Masters! Let me out! Let me out! Please, let me out!" Then she shook the heavy bars with her tiny, lovely hands. "Let me out!" she begged. "Please let me out, Masters!" Then, subsiding, sobbing, she slipped to her knees at the bars, holding them with her small hands: "Let me out, Masters!" she wept. "Please, my Masters, let me out!" But no one answered her cries. She knelt at the bars, her head down, sobbing. "Let me out," she whispered. "Please let me out, Masters:"