With the bonds on her, kneeling there, with the other women, she suddenly realized that now, at last, finally, here, in this place, all choices had indeed been removed from her. No longer were choices hers. She was now, irrevocably, what she was, whether she wished it or not.
She trembled in terror, understanding what she now was, and that there was no going back.
It was what she was, and would remain.
Her fate, and destiny, like that of the other women in the tent, were now inalterable.
There was no going back.
“I am owned?” she said.
The fitter laughed.
“Yes,” said her captor, he who caught her in the moonlight, he who had brought her here, putting her with the others.
She knew herself now a different sort of being than ever she had been before, save in her heart.
But now it was real, and public, as much as being a pig or dog.
She felt terribly helpless, and vulnerable and frightened.
He saw that she knew now what she was, simply, and that she knew herself his, just as simply, and he smiled, and she saw that he found in this some satisfaction.
She, kneeling, lifted her hands to him. “Brand me,” she said. “Collar me. Whip me!” And it seemed to her that there were stripes upon her back, which impressed her bondage upon her, and a mark, upon her thigh, which would be recognized throughout galaxies by magistrates and merchants, and on her fair throat, light, closely fitting, gleaming, locked, a collar.
“I would have a name, Master!” she wept.
“You have not yet earned a name,” he told her, and then turned about, and left.
She moved a bit after him, her hands extended to him, but, in a moment, was held up, short, and could move no further, could not follow him, because of the chain.
She felt herself then being stirred, being poked with a stick.
She lay on a thin, narrow, straw-filled pallet. It was covered with canvas. It lay directly on the floor.
She pulled the small blanket more closely about her.
She had not heard the key in the lock.
“Brand me,” she whispered. “Collar me.”
But then, beneath the cover, her fingers felt her left thigh. There was a mark there. And then her fingers went to her throat. She felt a chain there, leading up to a heavy collar, which she vaguely recollected had been put on her, over the house collar. The heavier collar fastened her to a ring in the wall, in the cell.
Again she drifted back, toward the tent with golden hangings, “Whip me,” she said.
“Do you wish to be whipped?” asked a voice, from somewhere, seemingly intrusive, alien, far off.
“No, no!” she said, quickly. It seemed she could recall the whip, or a whip, from somewhere. “No, please, do not whip me!” she whimpered, turning, squirming, pulling the blanket up about her. It seemed she remembered the whip, or some whip, from somewhere, someplace. “I will do whatever you want,” she said, in a small voice, frightened. “Please do not whip me.”
There was laughter, from somewhere.
The laughter of a man.
“Please give me a name,” she moaned.
“You have a name, a house name,” said a voice. “It is ‘Flora’.”
She then felt the blanket drawn away from her, and she pulled her legs up tightly, and lifted her head, looking up, and saw one of the keepers, a stick in one hand. There was a tiny lamp in the corridor, outside the bars.
“Come, Flora,” said he, “the day begins.”
Yes, thought the girl. I am here, truly. And I need not beg the whip, for I have been whipped, at least once, for instructional purposes. I hope they do not do it again. I am eager to obey them. I will do my best to please them. And I am branded. The tiny slave rose is there, high, on the left thigh, just under the hip. It is tiny, but it is clear. There is no mistaking it. And I do wear a collar, though a house collar, beneath a holding collar, keeping me to the wall.
She then went to her knees at the side of the pallet and put her head down to the floor, rendering obeisance to the keeper. He crouched near her and she, her head still down, felt the key fitted in the holding collar lock, and the holding collar, with a sound of chain, was removed from her, and dropped to the side. The keeper then again stood. She then kissed his feet, softly, tenderly, as she had been taught.
“Are you ready for your lessons, Flora?” he asked.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“Kneel up,” he said.
She straightened her body, and knelt in one of the positions she had been taught.
“You have come along well, Flora,” he said. “It is hard to believe that you are from Terennia.”
She was silent, not knowing if it were permitted to respond.
“You are incredibly beautiful,” he said.
“Sometimes,” he said, “those from worlds like Terennia, where they have been starved, and denied, turn out best, becoming the most feminine, the softest, the most eager, the most vulnerable, the most piteously needful, the most passionate, the most uninhibited, the most helpless and shameless, and beautiful, of all. Yet it all, in the end, depends on the female.”
He put the stick beside her cheek, and she moved her cheek a little, against it, looking up at him.
“You understand that Terennia is now behind you, forever, do you not, my pretty little slut?”
“Yes, Master,” she said.
He regarded her.
“You are beautiful enough to be sold to a high family on a pleasure planet,” he said.
“And as your training progresses, you will become more beautiful, and more helpless, and more needful,” he said. “You do not know, little bitch, so ignorant and simple, and naive, as you now kneel before me, how helpless you will become, how much at the mercy of men, and your needs.”
“You are not a man,” he said.
“No, Master,” she said.
“What may be asked of you?”
“Anything.”
“What is expected of you?”
“Everything,” she said.
“Is it your intention to be hot, devoted and dutiful?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“Are you to be obedient?”
“Yes,” she said.
“What is to be the nature of your obedience?” he asked.
“Instantaneous and total,” she said.
“What is your hope?” he asked.
“To be found pleasing,” she said.
“What is your intention?” he asked.
“To be pleasing.”
“Subject to what qualifications or reservations?”
“Subject to no qualifications or reservations,” she said.
“None?” he asked.
“None whatsoever,” she said.
“You are then to be fully, and totally, pleasing?”
“Yes, Master.”
Again he examined her.
“In time, Flora,” said he, “so feminine, so soft, so yielding, so helplessly passionate, you will become a piteous, begging dream of pleasure for a man, a meaningless slut, of course, and one despised and scorned, but one for whom planets might be bartered.”
She did not respond, as she did not know if it were permitted.
“You may follow me from the cell,” he said.