2 SYRINGES
I felt a bit of cold air, as the door of the cab was opened. Slowly, painfully, I began to come back to consciousness.
I was aware of Miss Henderson being lifted from the cab.
Then I, too, was removed from the cab, two men dragging me by the arms. We were inside a garagelike structure. The floor was cement. Miss Henderson was laid on her stomach on the cement. The light in the building was furnished by four bulbs overhead. They hung on cords from the ceiling. They had dark metal shades with white-enameled interiors, and were protected by wire frames.
I, too, was placed on my stomach on the cement. I felt my hands being drawn behind my back. They were then, to my consternation, locked in handcuffs.
I saw, from my position on the floor, five men. There was the driver of our cab, three burly fellows, two in jackets and one in a sweater, and one other man, dressed in a rumpled suit, his necktie loose about his throat. He was a large man, and heavy. He had, too, large, heavy hands. He seemed very strong. He was balding, virile.
"Awaken the slave," he said.
One of the men then, from behind, put his hands in Miss Henderson's hair and, rudely, with two hands, pulled her up backwards, she crying out suddenly with pain, awakening, finding herself kneeling, held by the hair, before the heavy man.
"It is you!" she said. "The man from the apartment!"
"You have not been given permission to speak," he said to her.
"I do not need permission to speak," she cried. "I am a free woman! I am not a slave!"
"Oh!" she cried, in pain, as the man's hands, he who held her, tightened in her hair, pulling her head back.
Her small hands, clutching at him, were helpless on his thick wrists.
"You had best form the habit early, of addressing free men as `Master,' Slave Girl," said the heavy man.
"I am not a slave girl," she cried. Then she cried out in pain, as her hair was twisted. Then she added, "-Master."
The heavy man gestured to the man who held the girl. He released the tension in the girl's hair, but he did not take his hands from it. She gasped. She looked up at the heavy man.
"That is better," he said.
"Yes," she said "-Master."
"To be sure," he said, "the point is moot, and interesting. There is a sense in which you are a slave, and a sense in which you are not a slave. The sense in which you are a slave is the sense in which I am justified in addressing you as a slave, and referring to you as a slave. That is the sense of the natural slave. Do not react so, my dear. It is true. You are a natural slave. This is fully clear to anyone who is familiar with such matters. Any slaver, any master, anyone who knows women, even another woman, but one knowledgeable in such matters, could tell it at a glance. Do not fret. It is simply true. And, indeed, if you derive any reassurance from this remark, you are one of the most obvious natural slaves I have ever seen. Your slavery, already, lies almost at the surface."
"No," she said, "no!"
"Your culture has provided little scope for the satisfaction and fulfillment of your slave needs," he said. "Other cultures, you will discover, are more tolerant and generous in this respect."
"No!" she cried.
"The sense in which you are not a slave, of course," he said, "is a trivial one. You have not yet been placed within the actual institution of slavery. You are not yet a legal slave, a slave under law. You have not yet, for example, been branded, nor have you been put in a collar, nor have you performed a gesture of submission."
She looked at him with horror.
"But do not fear," he said, "you will eventually find yourself in full compliance with any necessary legal pedantries. You will eventually find that you are, fully and legally, under law, a slave, totally a slave, and only a slave." He smiled at her. "You may now say, `Yes, Master,'" he said.
"Yes, Master," she whispered.
"Put the slave on her stomach," he said.
The man who held her hair threw the girl forward. She broke her fall with her hands. He then, with his foot, pressed her down to her stomach. I could see the mark of his boot on the back of her white dress.
"Put your hands at the sides of your head, palms down on the cement," said the heavy man.
"Yes," she said.
"Yes, what?" he asked.
"Yes, Master," she said. Then she cried out, "You can't enslave me!"
"Slavery is neither a new nor unusual phenomenon for women," he said. "In the course of human history many millions of lovely women have been enslaved. They have found themselves at the feet of masters. You are not special. Your fate is in no way historically unique."
He then removed a leather case from a white-enameled cabinet to one side. He placed the contents of the case on a steel table against one wall, on which there were certain tools. It contained two vials, cotton and a set of disposable syringes.
"I can't be a slave," she said. "I'm Beverly Henderson!"
"Enjoy your name while you still have it," he said. "Later you will be called only by those names by which masters please." I then understood, as I had not before, the remark of the heavy man in the apartment, which had been reported to me by the girl, that she might not have her name long. A slave, of course, would have no name in her own right. She must wear, docilely, any name her master might see fit to put upon her.
The girl moaned.
The heavy man then poured some fluid from one of the vials onto a piece of cotton.
"But, perhaps," he said, "your master will choose to call you Beverly. That, it seems to me, is a lovely name for a slave."
He nodded to the fellow who had held the girl's hair. That fellow, as she whimpered, tore open her dress at the waist on the left side. He then jerked back the sides of the dress, exposing a portion of flesh.
"The name then, of course, would be only a slave name," he said, "affixed on you by the will of the master." He smiled down at her. "Say, `Yes, Master,'" he said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
He crouched down beside her and, with the cotton onto which he had poured some fluid from one of the vials, swabbed a portion of her exposed flesh.
She shuddered.
"It's cold, isn't it?" he asked. "It's alcohol."
"Yes, Master," she whispered. He left the cotton on her body and went back to the leather case on the steel table. With another piece of cotton and some additional alcohol he sterilized the rubber diaphragm sealing the second vial. He then broke off the sanitary seal on one of the disposable syringes and, holding the second vial, now sterilized, upside down, inserted the long needle through the rubber diaphragm. He drew a greenish fluid into the needle.
"What are you doing?" begged the girl.
He replaced the second vial on the steel table and approached her. He crouched down beside her.
"I am preparing you for shipment," he said.
"Shipment!" she cried.
"Of course," he said. He lifted away the cotton he had left on her body.
"Where?" she asked.
"Can you not guess, you little fool?" he asked.
"No," she whispered.
"What a delicious, but stupid little slave you are," he said.