She was surprised at how sensitive her lips were, so soft, and moist, to the smallest touch. She could scarcely conjecture what it might feel like, what it might be to feel with them other surfaces, other textures, such as the body of a man. She felt, again, the presence of a bit of pressed cake against her teeth.
Even the tiny pressure of the cereal cake against her teeth could be felt, so clearly, so precisely. Her entire body was becoming sensuously alive, even helplessly so.
She fed.
She opened her mouth, again, lifting it, delicately, even imploringly, as she was hungry.
Surely there must be more.
But there was not.
She understood then that what she ate, and in what quantities, was no longer at her discretion, but at the discretion of another.
Indeed, whether she was to have food or drink at all, she now realized, was not at her discretion, but at that of another. It had not been a true feeling, at all, she then realized. It had been an instruction.
She trembled. She had learned a valuable lesson for a slave.
Suddenly, terribly frightened, she put down her hands and grasped the ring, and she then put them about the ring, seeing how it fitted into its hemispherical staple, and she then felt the heavy, solid plate, bolted into the floor, in which the staple, with the ring, was fixed, its dimensions, its shape, its height above the floor, the location and nature of the bolts which anchored it in the floor, and she then felt, even, the very nature of the floor itself, and a crack in a board, a place where something once must have scraped.
Her heart began, to pound wildly.
Surely she knew the plate, the ring, the staple.
She was certain then, too, that the crack, or gouge, she could now feel was one which once she had seen.
She lifted her head, her lips trembling. She jerked at her chains, but her wrists could move only a few inches upward, as they were fastened closely to the ring.
“Yes,” said a voice. “It is the same room.”
She squirmed on her knees, and jerked at the chains.
Hands took the hood in their grip and pulled it wider, and then, lifting it, tore it away.
“You!” she cried.
He seemed very tall then, standing over her. In his hand was the hood.
Damp, dark hair was loose, and wild, about her head and shoulders.
“Is this some form of jest?” she asked, pleadingly.
“I suppose so,” he said.
“Is this the room of my master?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“It is my room,” he said.
“You are my master?” she said.
“Yes,” said Tuvo Ausonius, “I am your master.”
CHAPTER 24
“No!” she cried. “Surely it is not true!”
“It is quite true,” said Tuvo Ausonius. “I own you. I am your master.”
A sudden, wild, almost-indescribable look, perhaps one of horror, perhaps one of misery, perhaps one of sudden, startled, unbelievable elation, or perhaps one of all three, transfused the countenance of the slave, but this was only for the briefest moment, for, in a moment, she had recaptured herself.
“I despise you,” she said. “I do not want you for my master!”
“Dogs and pigs do not decide who will be their masters, nor do lesser creatures, such as slave girls,” said Tuvo Ausonius.
He cast the hood to one side, to the floor.
“You are ‘Sesella,’” he said, naming her.
She glared up at him.
“What is your name?” he asked.
“Sesella,” she said.
“‘Sesella’?” he inquired.
“Sesella, Master,” she said.
“Do not forget it,” said Tuvo Ausonius.
“No, Master,” she said.
“How does the word ‘Master’ feel on your lips?” he asked.
“Fitting,” she said. She could scarcely tell what that simple sound, and its meaning, did to her, addressed to men, how it made her feel. Suddenly she felt warm, soft, moist and receptive. “What are you going to do with that whip?” she asked, uneasily.
“Perhaps you recall,” he said, “how in a basement chamber in the headquarters of the commissioner, you, not commanded, only permitted, flew at a kneeling, helpless fellow, and, somewhat ardently, even savagely, one might say, with supposed impunity, struck him, again and again.” He shook out the coils of the whip.
“That was done by a free woman, Sesella Gardener,” she said. “Surely you would not punish a poor slave for something done by a free woman!”
“I see that you are highly intelligent,” said Tuvo Ausonius.
“Thank you, Master,” said the girl.
“But not intelligent enough,” he said.
“Master?” she asked.
“It is not improper, you see, if the free woman has become the slave,” said Tuvo Ausonius. “For, in that case, after her embondment, her punishment is even more shameful, being then beaten as a mere slave.”
“I am small and soft,” she said. “You own me! I beg not to be whipped!”
“Perhaps we should not concern ourselves overly much with what was done by Sesella Gardener, the free woman,” said Tuvo Ausonius. “After all, she is gone. There is now in her place only pretty little Sesella, the slave.”
“Yes, Master!” said the slave, gratefully.
“But Master has not yet put aside the whip,” she said.
“But there does remain, of course, undeniably, the connection between Sesella Gardener, the free woman, and Sesella, the slave, for one has become the other.”
“Yes, Master,” said the girl, falteringly.
“But we need not concern ourselves, I suppose, at least not overly much, with such matters.”
“No, Master!”
“But you may, in any event, be whipped whenever I wish,” he said. “For example, if I feel like whipping you, I may do so.”
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“You understand that you are subject to the whip?”
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“As a highly intelligent girl, even if not quite intelligent enough, you understand that?”
“Yes, Master.”
“You may be whipped at any time, for any reason, or for no reason,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” she whispered.
“That helps to keep slave girls zealous,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
He looked at the whip, in his hands.
“Please, no, Master,” she said.
“‘No’?” he said.
“No,” she said.
“Why?” he asked.
“I am zealous,” she whispered.
“Speak up,” he said.
“I am zealous!” she said.
“Is she who was once Sesella Gardener the free woman and is now Sesella, the slave, zealous?”
“Yes, Master!”
“Who is zealous?
“Sesella, the slave, is zealous!”
He struck the whip once or twice into the palm of his hand.
“Do not whip me,” she begged. “Rather let me serve your pleasure!”
“My pleasure?”
“Yes, as a slave girl!” she said.
“You would serve with such abject perfection?”
“Yes, Master! Let me on the bed!”
“Lie on your back, where you are,” he said.
He took a blanket from the bed, and threw it to the floor. He then drew her down, so that her hands were up, chained over her head, as she lay. He did thrust the blanket under her.
Then he stood up, and looked down at her.
“The top button of your jacket is undone,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” she smiled.
“You leaned forward,” he said. “Your undergarments were not those prescribed to conceal your figure. You bared your hair before me, a same, though you, too, were a same. You knelt. You dared to use lipstick. You came to this room, garbed, adorned, perfumed, in ways inappropriate for a same. There are many counts against you.”