Hamilton, her head down, was startled. Had William loved her? Was that why, now, remembering his frustrations, be had used her with such ruthlessness? Surely he did not love her now. Now that she lay open to him as a mere slave he no longer respected her. He used her often, and insolently, and with power. Contemptuously he made her scream with pleasure, scorning her in her helplessness. If she had frustrated him in Rhodesia, he had now taken his vengeance on her, many times. She, as a slave, her use given to him and Gunther by the men, had repaid him many fold for Rhodesia. When she had been inaccessible, frigid, a lady, he had stood in awe of her, and had perhaps loved her. She smiled to herself. Now that she was fully alive, arousable, impassioned, and his at a word, a glance, a snapping of his fingers, his as a helpless, yielding slave, he no longer loved her, no longer respected her. And it was not that he was content to use her as a mere instrument of his pleasure; he was not so kind; when he ravished her, it was to devastate her complete person; he would call her by name, tenderly, and, she held in his arms, remind her of their experiences in Rhodesia, how she had looked, what she had said, what he had said, and then, when he was ready, he would inform her, “Now I am going to have you, Miss Hamilton, use you, use you as the slut and slave you are,” and then he would do so; sometimes he would stop, cruelly, making her beg, in tears, for him to continue. “Please fuck me, William,” she would whisper. “Please fuck me, William!” she would beg, crying out. Then he would laugh, and give her pleasure. It was interesting. Before she had diminished him, and he had stood in awe of her. Now that her helplessness, her humiliation, his success, exalted him, he scorned her. He was far kinder to Flower. Once when she had not obeyed him promptly enough, he had beaten her with a switch. No one had interfered, even Tree. He, William, as a male, had had this right. She was only a woman. After the beating, she feared him, knowing him then, as she had not before, as being capable of disciplining her; moreover, she now knew he was willing to discipline her, and would, if he thought it necessary, or it pleased him to do so. After the beating she, for the first time, profoundly respected him as a male. And after the beating he no longer respected her, as anything. She was then only an imbonded wench to him. From a lady she had become only a slave. As a lady she had been admired and respected, perhaps even loved; as a slave she found herself relished with the delight of a master in his property, ravaged with the joy of a conqueror amidst the daughters of his enemies, and scorned as no more. She found herself tempted to love William, but her heart belonged to Tree.
“And, of course,” said Gunther, “at times sex and love may coexist, though commonly briefly, infrequently, and sometimes incompatibly.” Gunther grinned. “And, of course, one might have neither love nor sex. This, I submit, is the endemic condition of our much-vaunted civilization, constructed according to agricultural values, shaped by the fanatic, diseased brains of celibates, battening, not working, on the increase of the land, those with a vested interest in the perpetuation of superstition, misery and fear.”
“These matters are rather above me,” said William. “I am only a lowly physician.”
“Make men miserable in this world,” said Gunther, “then promise them a better one somewhere else, a promise on which you are never required to pay off. Tell them to behave themselves and roof the temples with gold. Control sex. Exploit the fear of death, invent terrors, and ring up the proceeds on the cash registers. Tell them you have secret magic. Cultivate their fears, their ignorance, carefully. It is valuable to you. Claim to hold the keys to the mystery. But the mystery mocks them. The mystery mocks us all.”
“What are you speaking of?” asked William.
“Tyranny, despotism,” said Gunther. “Existence, life, the world.”
The fire in the cave crackled; there was silence otherwise; shadows flickered on the walls of stone.
“Let us speak of simpler things,” said Gunther. He looked at Hamilton, who still knelt before him, her head and hair to the stone floor of the cave. He regarded her for some time, as did William. She did not move.
“Every male, from time to time,” said Gunther, “desires absolute power over a female.”
“Yes,” said William.
“One who admits to this desire,” said Gunther, “in our familiar world, is characterized as peculiar or perverted, or weak, or timid or sick, and usually characterized as such with a belying hysterical intensity, for here some obscure nerve is touched. On the other hand, since this desire, from time to time, is universal in males, it seems that an entire sex, literally billions of human beings, must be then characterized as we have suggested. In a different reality, the tiger, wanting meat; in a world of antelope, would be characterized similarly. It is a way the antelope have of trying to protect themselves from tigers. Program the tiger’s brain in such a way as to conflict with its instincts. Let the tigers die in misery, starving. But when the tiger has taken meat he no longer starves; he is then determined to feed. You, William, for the first time, have fed.”
William turned Flower’s head to face him. His hand was still in her hair. Then he turned her about again, holding her face to the stone.
“How do you feel, William?” asked Gunther.
William released Flower, who rolled against his leg, her lips to his thigh. “I feel strong, and powerful,” said William.
“Are you happy here?” asked Gunther.
“I have been more than happy here,” said William. “I have been joyful.”
“That is interesting, is it not?” asked Gunther.
“Perhaps,” said William.
Flower had lifted her eyes timidly to those of William. “Look into the eyes of your pretty little blond sow,” said Gunther. “She adores you.”
William smiled.
“That pleases your vanity, does it not?” asked Gunther.
“It does not displease me,” said William, grinning.
“The important point,” said Gunther, “is to note that it does please you.”
“Certain weaknesses, I suppose,” said William, “are natural.”
“That it is a weakness is a value judgment, automatically generated from your conditioning program,” said Gunther. “All we know is that it is natural. What if feelings of power, of pleasure, of dominance, were not weaknesses, but strengths? The tiger’s ability to tear flesh, to break a heifer’s back with one blow, is not weakness.” Gunther grinned. “One need not claim the natures of men are either weaknesses or strengths. One need only recognize them as realities, which, thwarted, produce miseries, diseases, deaths.”
“Nothing natural can be evil,” said William.
“But what of your desire to dominate, to own, a desirable female?”
“In a male,” said William, “speaking as a physician, that is a natural disposition.”
“Can it then be evil, or strange, or peculiar, or perverted, or timid, or a symptom of illness?”
“No,” said William. “No more than breathing or the circulation of the blood within the musculature.”
“But to say that it is not evil, is not to say that it is good?”
“No more than to say that breathing or the circulation of the blood is good. In themselves, they simply exist.”
“True,” said Gunther. “Here we speak not of goods and evils, but of realities. We are here, so to speak, beyond good and evil.”
“But,” said William, “surely, relative to a species, one might speak of good and evil.”
“Perhaps,” said Gunther. “But what is to be the criterion of such appraisals. Shall we say that that which is good creates misery, produces illnesses and shortens life?”
“I suppose we could,” said William.
“But we need not do so,” said Gunther. “We might, alternatively, say that is good which makes men strong, which makes them healthy, which prolongs life, which enhances their power and exalts them, which lifts them to vitality and kingship, which makes them great.”